Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Yen Kuan-heng/Facebook
FORMER TAICHUNG legislator Yen Kuan-heng, who is seeking to run as the KMT’s candidate in 2024 once again, was released on bail earlier this week after he and his wife, Chen Li-ling, were taken in for questioning by prosecutors. Yen was released on 10 million NT bail, while Chen was released on 5 million NT bail.
Yen was questioned over the sale of a mansion that he previously owned, but which was sold to Taichung company Jazz Space Design at 45 million NT. This is considered below market value. As such, four workers of Jazz Space Design were also detained on charges of forgery and illegal acquisition of public land, among other charges.
Yen Kuan-heng is the scion of the Yen family, which has long dominated Taichung politics. Yen’s father, Yen Ching-piao, is the head of the Dajia Jenn Lann Temple. The Dajia Jenn Lann Temple is where the Dajia Mazu pilgrimage, Taiwan’s largest religious pilgrimage, starts. But the Yen family has long been noted for its ties to organized crime, with the elder Yen having faced charges in the past including attempted murder, illegal firearms possession, and corruption.
Photo credit: Yen Kuan-heng/Facebook
The younger Yen succeeded his father as legislator after he was jailed for 43 months over corruption charges in February 2013, but he was ousted from office in 2020 in an election that led to the victory of Chen Po-wei in 2020. Though Chen was later recalled in a campaign spearheaded by Yen and the KMT, his chances of winning were sunk in a by-election where he was defeated by Lin Ching-yi of the DPP.
Yen is hoping to run against Lin again as the KMT’s candidate. At the time, members of the pan-Green camp viewed Lin’s win as a significant triumph, seeing as this represented making inroads into the longstanding dominion of the Yen family.
However, Yen’s defeat in the by-election took place after he came under scrutiny over a mansion owned by Yen with a market value of 90 million NT which was constructed on protected land. Although the Taiwanese media has historically refrained from reporting on the corruption of the Yen family, this was no longer the case with the by-election, resulting in Yen’s defeat. At the time, Yen sought to deny investigators access to the mansion, and he was also accused of bribing voters by offering them lavish banquets.
So, then, does Yen continue to come under fire in connection with his former mansion. The pan-Blue camp has in the meantime tried to frame prosecutors’ actions as deliberately targeting the Yen family, framing the 10 million NT bailed by Yen to be unusually high for someone that was not a flight risk for Taiwan, seeing as Yen hoped to run for elections.
Photo credit: Yen Kuan-heng/Facebook
Yen reportedly did not want to post bail, but was persuaded to do so by his father, with his father’s supporters stating that it was not healthy for his father if he stayed in jail to try and continually persuade his son to post bail–although the sob story of filial piety suggests a deliberate framing of the incident to elicit sympathy. The high bail amount, as well as that Yen could post it, will reinforce the perception of Yen as a wealthy princeling out of touch with the common people, which is another reason why the pan-Blue camp has accused prosecutors as acting with a clear political intent in mind.
The pan-Blue camp has suggested that the Tsai administration may target other pan-Blue politicians with ongoing corruption cases against them, particularly individuals also implicated in corrupt land deals such as Yilan county magistrate Lin Zi-miao. It is also suggested that this may be aimed at distracting from a corruption scandal in Tainan that a number of DPP politicians were caught up in, though the case also implicates some KMT members. Although Lin is one of a number of pan-Blue politicians currently facing such charges, Lin is not up for reelection, having just won in the 2022 local elections last year. Hualien legislator Fu Kun-chi, whose presence on the KMT’s election strategy committee led to significant pushback from younger politicians in the party, would be a more likely target. Fu is, after all, running for reelection.