Ruling Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers are in hot water for a since-deleted post in response to South Korean President Yoon Seok Yeol's unexpected order for martial law. Opposition party lawmakers are accusing the ruling party caucus of taking advantage of Seoul's situation to smear local opponents.
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00:00Here in Taiwan, ruling party lawmakers are distancing themselves from comments they made
00:05about South Korea's unexpected martial law order.
00:09The Democratic Progressive Party took to social media to post and then quickly take down a
00:14message seeming to compare local opposition parties to anti-state forces.
00:20Joyce Tseung joins us now from the newsroom with more.
00:24Joyce, what is the DPP trying to say?
00:28Ruling party lawmakers are now, as you mentioned, distancing themselves from a since-deleted
00:32post reacting to South Korean President Yun Seok-yol's unexpected martial law order.
00:38They're under fire for what opposition lawmakers and people who saw the post interpreted as
00:43apparent support of martial law.
00:46If we look back at a screenshot of the DPP's post that was quickly taken down here translated,
00:52the lawmakers appear to compare South Korea's situation to Taiwan's, listing out ways the
00:58opposition KMT and TPP have either blocked or quote, paralyzed and maliciously amended
01:05the rule of law.
01:06Now, they ended this post saying that they are quote, constantly confronting the global
01:11dark evil forces invading this country.
01:14Now, this drew a backlash.
01:16Opposition lawmakers are questioning why the DPP appears to support what was an unpopular
01:22and now unsuccessful martial law order in Seoul.
01:26Shortly after taking down that first post, the DPP quickly published a second one to
01:31clarify that there was no intention to support martial law and what they were trying to do
01:36was simply relay international news and compare it with Taiwan's political situation.
01:42They also acknowledged that the KMT has implemented martial law three times here in Taiwan, that
01:48the DPP was born out of this era and so knows full well how harmful martial law can be to
01:54democracy and ultimately expressed regret for causing this commotion.
02:00I reached out to the DPP and they said they had nothing more to add to this statement.
02:05The KMT, on the other hand, is continuing to criticize the ruling party's comments.
02:18The KMT has also called on President Lai Ching-te to apologize for the comments, but the DPP
02:45at this point seems to feel that they've said all they needed to say.