The New Power Party (NPP) is a political party in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

formed in early 2015. The party emerged from the

Sunflower Student Movement The Sunflower Student Movement is associated with a protest movement driven by a coalition of students and civic groups that came to a head between March 18 and April 10, 2014, in the Legislative Yuan and, later, also the Executive Yuan of T ...

in 2014, and

advocates An advocate is a professional in the field of law. Different countries' legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a barrister or a solicitor. However, ...

for

universal human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hum ...

civil Civil may refer to: *Civic virtue, or civility *Civil action, or lawsuit * Civil affairs *Civil and political rights *Civil disobedience *Civil engineering *Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism *Civilian, someone not a membe ...

and

political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

liberties, as well as

Taiwan independence Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

nationalism Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...

.New Power Party Platform
Chinese) The party is a part of the political phenomenon known as the "Third Force" (), in which new political parties, unaligned with traditional

Pan-Green The pan-Green coalition, pan-Green force or pan-Green groups is a nationalist political coalition in Taiwan (Republic of China), consisting of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Taiwan Statebuilding Party (TSP), Taiwan Solidarity Union (T ...

Pan-Blue Coalition The pan-Blue coalition, pan-Blue force or pan-Blue groups is a political coalition in the Republic of China (Taiwan) consisting of the Kuomintang (KMT), People First Party (PFP), New Party (CNP), Non-Partisan Solidarity Union (NPSU), and Young ...

s, sought to provide an alternative in Taiwanese politics. Nevertheless, the NPP's policies are very much aligned with and closely match the Pan-Green camp; thus the NPP cooperated with the

Democratic Progressive Party The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is a Taiwanese nationalist and centre-left political party in the Republic of China (Taiwan). Controlling both the Republic of China presidency and the unicameral Legislative Yuan, it is the majori ...

(DPP) against the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

(KMT) in the 2016 elections, going as far as not to run in traditional KMT strongholds to avoid competition with the DPP. The party works in tandem with a perceived generational shift towards Taiwan-centrism as the new socio-cultural norm. The party was started by

Freddy Lim Freddy Lim Tshiong-tso (; Tâi-lô: ''Lîm Tshióng-tsò''; born 1 February 1976) is a Taiwanese politician, musician, and independence activist. He is the lead vocalist of the Taiwanese heavy-metal band Chthonic. and the lead vocalist of the ...

, lead vocalist of Taiwanese heavy metal band

Chthonic The word chthonic (), or chthonian, is derived from the Ancient Greek word ''χθών, "khthon"'', meaning earth or soil. It translates more directly from χθόνιος or "in, under, or beneath the earth" which can be differentiated from Γῆ ...

, veteran activist Michael Lin, human rights lawyers ,

Chiu Hsien-chih Chiu Hsien-chih (born 29 April 1976) is a Taiwanese lawyer and politician. He contested the 2016 and 2020 legislative elections as a member of the New Power Party, winning the latter election. Chiu served as leader of the New Power Party between ...

, and other prominent figures of the

. Lim headed the party-building process, which saw the inclusion of Hung Tzu-yung, sister of the late Hung Chung-chiu, environmental lawyer , and author-activist Neil Peng into the party. On 12 September 2015, the NPP was officially formed with the election of

Huang Kuo-chang Huang Kuo-chang (, born ) is a Taiwanese politician, activist, legal scholar, researcher and writer. He is one of the lead figures of the Sunflower Student Movement and joined the New Power Party shortly afterwards. He served as leader of the par ...

as executive leader, heading a leadership team of six deputy leaders. The NPP won five legislative seats in the

2016 Taiwanese legislative election The 2016 Taiwanese legislative election was held, along with the presidential election, on 16 January 2016 for all 113 seats in the Legislative Yuan. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) led by Tsai Ing-wen, who also won the presidential elect ...

, three from constituency and two from party-list votes, beating out long-time third party People First Party. However, two of its legislators left the party in 2019. In the 2020 Taiwanese legislative election, NPP won three party-list seats.

Platform

The NPP aims to rewrite the

Constitution of the Republic of China The Constitution of the Republic of China is the fifth and current constitution of the Republic of China (ROC), ratified by the Kuomintang during the session on 25 December 1946, in Nanjing, and adopted on 25 December 1947. The constitution, ...

. The constitution operates under the assumption that the Republic governs all of China (including

mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater China. ...

, which the ROC has not governed since 1949), to just refer to

. The NPP supports the legalization of

same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same Legal sex and gender, sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being ...

and is generally in favor of abolition of

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

. The NPP also takes a more left wing stance compared to the

DPP DPP may stand for: Business *Digital Production Partnership, of UK public service broadcasters * Direct Participation Program, a financial security * Discounted payback period Photography * Digital Photo Professional, Canon software Law en ...

on labor and welfare.

History

The party was established on 25 January 2015. In the 2016 Taiwan legislative election, the first contested by the party, the NPP won five seats in the Legislative Yuan, making it the third largest party in the Ninth Legislative Yuan. Three of the candidates gained constituency seats and two were elected through the party list. Freddy Lim and Hung Tzu-yung left the NPP in August 2019, though both remained independent members of the Ninth Legislative Yuan and chose to align with the DPP. That same month, NPP legislator Kawlo Iyun Pacidal was suspended from the party. Kawlo, a party-list legislator, was replaced by Jang Show-ling in September 2019. In the

2020 Taiwan legislative election The 2020 Taiwanese legislative election was held on 11 January 2020 for all 113 seats to the Legislative Yuan concurrently with the 15th presidential election in Taiwan. The term of the Legislative Yuan began on 1 February 2020. The Democratic ...

, the New Power Party won three party list seats, which elected Chen Jiau-hua,

, and Claire Wang as legislators of the Tenth Legislative Yuan.

Leadership

Secretary-General

# Chen Hui-min (25 January 2015 – 1 March 2019) # Chen Meng-hsiu (1 March 2019 – 30 August 2019) # Wu Pei-yun (30 August 2019 – 1 March 2020) # Chen Chih-ming (1 March 2020 – 29 August 2020) #

Kao Yu-ting Kao Yu-ting (; born 28 March 1985) is a Taiwanese engineer and politician. She joined the New Power Party in 2015, served as party leader from August to November 2020. Early life and career Kao was born on 28 March 1985 in Taipei County and wa ...

(16 September 2020 – 17 November 2020) #

Bai Ching-feng BAI or Bai may refer to: BAI Organizations *BAI Communications, telecommunications infrastructure company *BAI (organization), professional organization for financial services in the United States *Badminton Association of India, India's gove ...

(since 17 November 2020)

Legislative Yuan leader (caucus leader)

Hsu Yung-ming Hsu Yung-ming (; born 15 May 1966) is a Taiwanese political scientist, pollster, and politician. He represented the New Power Party within the Legislative Yuan from 2016 to 2020. In August 2019, he began serving as NPP chairman. Following his re ...

(1 February 2016 – 10 September 2019) *

(10 September 2019 – 31 January 2020) *

(since 1 February 2020)

Election results

Legislative elections

Local elections

The New Power Party fielded 40 candidates for city and county councils across Taiwan in the local elections of November 2018. Sixteen NPP candidates for local office won. The party nominated candidates for mayor and magisterial posts for the first time prior to the 2022 local elections.

Notes

References

External links

New Power Party
on

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

Official website (In Traditional Chinese)
{{Taiwanese political parties Social democratic parties in Taiwan Centre-left parties in Asia Formosa Alliance