The New Power Party is a political party in Taiwan formed in early 2015. The party emerged from the Sunflower Student Movement in 2014, and advocates for universal human rights, civil and political liberties, as well as Taiwan independence/nationalism. The party is a part of the political phenomenon known as the "Third Force", in which new political parties, unaligned with traditional Pan-Green or Pan-Blue Coalitions, sought to provide an alternative in Taiwanese politics. Nevertheless, the NPP's policies are very much aligned and closely matches the Pan-Green camp; thus the NPP cooperated with the Democratic Progressive Party against the Kuomintang 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, lead vocalist of Taiwanese heavy metal bandChthonic, veteran activist Michael Lin, human rights lawyers, Chiu Hsien-chih, and other prominent figures of the Sunflower Student Movement. 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 as executive leader, heading a leadership team of six deputy leaders. The NPP won five legislative seats in the 2016 Taiwanese legislative election, three from constituency and two from party-list votes, beating out long-time third party People First Party. However, two of its members left the party in 2019. In the 2020 Taiwanese legislative election, NPP retained three seats.
Platform
The NPP aims to rewrite the Constitution of the Republic of China. The constitution operates under the assumption that the Republic governs all of China, to just refer to Taiwan. The NPP supports the legalization of same-sex marriage and is generally in favor of abolition of capital punishment. The NPP also takes a more leftist stance than the DPP in labor and welfare issues.
History
The party was established on 25 January 2015.
Leadership
Election results
Legislative elections
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 there. Three of the winners 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. That same month, NPP legislator Kawlo Iyun Pacidal was suspended from the party. Kawlo, an at-large legislator, was replaced by Jang Show-lingin September 2019. In the 2020 legislative elections, the New Power Party won three party list seats, occupied by, Chiu Hsien-chih, and Claire Wang.
