TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan lawmakers put each other in headlocks and wrestled on the floor of the legislature Friday as the opposition party moved to occupy the president’s pulpit in a bid to stave off a vote on a nuclear power plant.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators who oppose further construction of the plant in northern Taiwan grappled with ruling party Kuomintang lawmakers, after entering the building late Thursday, according to footage shown on local cable channels.

A legislative vote to decide if there should be a wider ballot with the Taiwanese people on the project was delayed, preventing Legislative Yuan President Wang Jing-pyng from opening the session. The Kuomintang, known as the KMT, holds 65 seats compared to the DPP’s 40.

“The ruling party shouldn’t use the violence of majority rule to push through the nuclear power plant project,” DPP spokesman Jason Lin said in a statement Friday. “We support the hard work of our party members.”

Nearly 70,000 people in major cities across Taiwan protested in March against the NT$264 billion ($8.8 billion) Longmen Nuclear Power Plant, located 25 miles east of Taipei. The administration of President Ma Ying-jeou has pledged to abandon atomic energy as soon as economically- and environmentally-viable alternatives can be found.