As the old saying goes, "it's easier said than done."
Apologizing for an aide forging receipts to claim mayoral fund expenses, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Both Ma and the Taipei City Government portrayed the event as a mere "administrative flaw."
The mayoral fund case shares a key similarity with the fracas over President Chen Shui-bian's (
The double standard is brazen. Ma called Chen's behavior "corruption" and demanded the president step down. When caught doing the same thing, he dismisses the case as administrative negligence.
Ma stressed that he had been "executing official duties according to the law" when the expenses were incurred and claimed. But just which law is Ma referring to that obliges government officials to forge receipts?
On several occasions Auditor-General Su Chen-ping (
But more appropriately, Su should be subjected to a formal inquiry to determine whether he attempted to cover up for Ma and whether he benefited illegally from the fund himself. There is sufficient prima facie evidence available to demand a probe -- at least as much evidence as was originally available when the pan-blues called for an investigation into Chen's use of the "state affairs fund."
On the legislative floor on Tuesday, a number of pan-blue legislators suggested that Premier Su Tseng-chang (
Now with Ma's integrity also in question, surely those same pan-blue legislators will follow their own advice and quit their jobs?
The timing of the Taipei City Government's press conference on Tuesday night also raised some eyebrows. The conference came just six hours after Ma was questioned by investigators from the Taipei High Court Anti-Corruption Center. Why did it take so long to own up?
While both the Taipei City Government and Ma yesterday laid blame on one of the mayor's aides for switching receipts, the question needs to be asked: How and why would a civil servant use a fake receipt without authorization from his superior?
Chen at least had the fortitude to openly admit that he authorized others to "switch receipts" to write off expenditure for his secret diplomacy.
The truth of the matter is that both the mayoral expense fund and the "state affairs fund" are indicative of an era when public money was usedwith impunity. The rules governing these funds are out of date in today's democratic environment.
But until the legal structures are fixed, let's hold Ma up to his own standards of morality: Mayor Ma, you were caught with your hand in the cookie jar. Maybe you should consider stepping down.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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