The troubles President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has experienced since he named his Control and Examination Yuan nominees has been interesting in that they not only have shown how far Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators are willing to go to defy their president, but also for revealing the double standards that permeate the pan-blue camp.
During the previous government’s tenure, pan-blue figures and the pro-unification media lined up to criticize what it called the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) “political appointments,” criticizing former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) for using state-run company chairmanships and overseas representative positions to reward friends and loyal party figures.
As an editorial in the Chinese-language China Times put it on April 29, “The Chen Shui-bian regime filled government posts based on political considerations, and forced the entire nation to suffer the consequences.”
But since the KMT came back to power on May 20, that holier-than-thou opposition to political horse-trading seems to have evaporated.
This was apparent even before the KMT assumed office, as with the announcement in late April that former Taiwan Solidarity Union legislator Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) would be appointed Mainland Affairs Council chairwoman. KMT caucus acting secretary-general Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) was quick to remind Ma that “the KMT is full of talented people” and that “they did their best to campaign for the KMT during legislative and presidential elections.”
Similar reminders were issued again last month during the diplomatic spat with Japan over the Diaoyutais (釣魚台), which led to the resignation of the pro-independence representative to Japan, Koh Se-kai (�?�). The calls to replace DPP appointees with the KMT faithful were vocal and unabashed.
The rejection on Friday of most of the pan-green-friendly candidates selected by Ma for the Control Yuan also seemed to have been carried out in disgust at Ma’s failure to reward former People First Party (PFP) members who lost their legislative seats with a suitable sinecure. In fact, several former PFP members were reportedly upset that Ma had failed to nominate PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) as Control Yuan president.
The irony of appointing Soong — a convicted tax evader who showed nothing but contempt for the same body when summoned to explain his finances ahead of the 2000 presidential election — as president of the Control Yuan seems to have been lost on some of our more hardcore pan-blue colleagues.
Giving charge of the government body tasked with fighting corruption among elected officials and senior civil servants to someone who has enormous question marks hanging over his integrity would be lunacy.
To his credit, Ma resisted the temptation to “reward” such people in the first round of nominees, but how he reacts to the rejection of his candidates and who he nominates to fill the still-empty positions will say a lot about how he intends to rule and whether he has the backbone to stand up to those in the KMT who openly advocate cronyism.
Throughout his political career, Ma has advocated the need for integrity and clean government. The next few weeks will prove whether he has the wherewithal to stick to his guns.
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