Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: 台灣民眾黨/Facebook
ISSUES OF POLITICAL CORRUPTION continue to be prevalent in Taiwanese politics, as a number of recent incidents go to show. This has drawn in politicians both pan-Blue and pan-Green.
The most widely discussed series of cases involve TPP chair and former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je. Ko Wen-je is accused of a number of land sale issues that may touch on corruption, including of being implicated in the expansion of floor area ratio of the Core Pacific City Mall to benefit its operators, as well as the sale of two plots of the Shilin Beitou Technology Park to the Shin Kong Group that his vice presidential candidate in the 2024 election, Cynthia Wu, hails from despite that Shin Kong had no investment plan. Ko and his former deputy mayor, TPP legislator Huang Shan-shan, have been accused of links to the Core Pacific City Mall project by former deputy mayor Peng Cheng-sheng, who served in Ko’s administration and has been detained in connection to the investigation. Shen Qing-jing, the chair of the conglomerate that owns the Core Pacific City Mall, alleged today in a statement that he had been approached by Hau and Ko mayoral administration officials requesting bribes in the past but had denied this.
Likewise, the TPP has come under fire for apparently not declaring any campaign expenses in the 2024 elections. Though not necessarily a sign of wrongdoing where electoral campaigning is concerned, this suggests at least gross incompetence on the part of the TPP.
More recently, Ko has come under fire for purchasing expensive office space in the building near the Legislative Yuan. Ko is accused of pocketing election subsidies to be able to afford to purchase the office for personal use, while his wife Peggy Chen also faces rumors of looking at nearby real estate. While Ko has vowed that this was for his long-term political ambitions and claimed that DPP candidate Lai Ching-te and KMT candidate Hou You-yi did the same as he, both Lai and Hou largely returned election subsidies to their respective parties or donated them rather than keep the subsidies for personal use.
Cheng Wen-tsan. Photo credit: Cheng Wen-tsan/Facebook
In the meantime, former Taoyuan mayor and deputy premier Cheng Wen-tsan faces up to twelve years in jail. This is over allegations of corruption that Cheng faces regarding the rezoning of a plot of land when he was mayor of Taoyuan. Before Cheng faced such scandals and before a plagiarism scandal led him to be stripped of his degree from National Taiwan University, Cheng was previously considered a DPP party heavyweight and a potential rival of Lai Ching-te as the DPP’s successor to Tsai Ing-wen.
Although Cheng served as the head of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) in the Lai administration, a surprisingly low position for a figure of his stature, this seems to indicate the importance that the Lai administration places on the SEF. This also could be observed with Lai’s placement of DPP power player Luo Wen-jia in the SEF, who later took up Cheng’s position as chair. But Cheng’s fall from grace on corruption charges has been sudden and unexpected.
The Lai administration further faced a stumble with the resignation of Minister of Transportation and Communications Li Min-yen over a long-term affair. Li resigned while taking the high-speed rail and then disappeared from the public eye, as a result of which coverage of Li’s affair has been relatively sparse. Contributing to this has been that Li’s resignation was overshadowed by the numerous scandals facing the TPP, whereas the fall of a government minister would have otherwise garnered more attention if it had occurred in a week when another political party was so plagued by scandal.
KMt legislator Sra Kacaw had his offices searched earlier this week, though it is yet unclear as to what charges he faces. DPP legislator Lin I-chin’s office was also searched in a separate investigation, though it is also unclear what charges Lin may face.
To this extent, Pingtung County Council speaker Chou Tien-lun of the KMT has been indicted, facing up to four years in jail over charges that he purchased signatures for Foxconn chair Terry Gou during Gou’s independent run for president. While it is not unheard of for politicians to become implicated in vote-buying scandals, perhaps what this indicant points to is splits in the KMT, in that Chou was collecting signatures for an individual who was not the KMT candidate, though Gou was clearly a member of the pan-Blue camp. Chou denies these charges.
It is possible that one is seeing a wave of activity all at once by Taiwanese prosecutors against both pan-Green and pan-Blue political figures in order to maintain the perception of non-partisanship in rooting out corruption. After all, with the recent public focus on the numerous scandals faced by the DPP, prosecutors will not want to come off as merely acting on behalf of the DPP when the pan-Blue camp has increasingly embraced claims of facing political persecution from the DPP whenever some pan-Blue politician is caught up in scandal.