Jubilation in Taiwan, celebration outside Democratic Progressive Party headquarters as election results come in
Thousands gather outside DPP headquarters as the historic election result comes in, ousting the historic KMT from power in Taiwan’s government
It’s a sleepless night outside the Democratic Progressive Party’s Headquarter in Taipei on Saturday night, with thousands of exciting supporters bringing their loved ones to join the carnival.
“President Tsai Ing-wen, light up Taiwan!”shouted supporters, waving Tsai’s campaign flags and crowding the main road outside DPP HQ, where police blocked nearby to give way for the gala. Fireworks let off on the grand stage, pushing the atmosphere to highest gear.
Among them is Cavin Chen, a 37-year-old IT engineer, his nurse wife and their three children from 1 to 9.
“I and my wife are middle class family and swing voters. We only voted for qualified candidates based on their political views. We gave chances to Kuomintang in the past eight years, but we are very disappointed on President Ma Ying-jeou’s performance.”
The supporters are excited, but they said they are also rational. Many of them were supporters of ban-blue parties.
“If Tsai fails to improve Taiwan’s economic and social development in the future, we will let her step down too.”
But Lu said he and his wife would try best to help Tsai. They took their 12-year-old daughter Emily Lu from Taoyuan to work as volunteers in the DPP HQ at 3:00pm.
“My wife is a medical staff, she helps taking care of first aid job here, and I and my girl have started to distribute campaign flags to other supporters as we want to let our children understand that everyone needs to make contribution to our society, it’s part of citizen’s responsibility,” Lu said.
In order to show their support to Tsai, Tsao Chih-lung, a 24-year-old IT worker and his four cousins designed banners, while some students sell hand-made coin purses to raise funds for Tsai’s campaign office.
“We know Hsiao Ing’s future is not easy, so we want to try our efforts to help her,” one student said, referring to Tsai’s nick name.
