by Brian Hioe
語言:
English
Photo Credit: TPP/Facebook
KO WEN-JE SUPPORTERS RALLIED yesterday at Liberty Plaza in support of the embattled TPP leader. Organizers claimed that 150,000 attended the event, though there are allegations that the crowd count was wildly inflated and closer to 15,000.
Ko currently faces up to 28 years and six months in jail on corruption charges. The charges facing Ko are primarily linked to the Core Pacific City Mall. Ko is accused of accepting bribes from Core Pacific Group chair Sheen Ching-jing to expand the floor area ratio of the mall from 392% to 840%, giving the mall more than 1,000 ping in extra space, and allowing the Core Pacific City Mall to make an extra 40 billion NT. Others taken into custody in connection with the charges are Sheen, as well as KMT city councilor Angela Ying, who is accused of acting as a go-between for Sheen and Ying.
Ko also faces charges of appropriating political donations to the TPP for personal use. Ko was accused of keeping election subsidies and using them to purchase office space in his own name, rather than returning the funds to the party, or donating them, as the other major presidential candidates did.
Photo credit: TPP/Facebook
Though Ko was briefly released on bail in December, this was later overturned. Prosecutors successfully overturned Ko’s release because of the possibility that Ko would collude with accomplices to destroy evidence, pointing to past instances in which Ko deleted text messages from his cell phone, or lost a cell phone under suspicious circumstances during a trip to the US.
Participants at the rally largely emphasized their view of Ko as innocent of charges, while alleging that the Lai administration has concocted charges against Ko as a means of political persecution targeting opponents. This occurs despite that prosecutors have provided evidence including data from USB drives, Excel spreadsheets, and chat logs. In light of the great public interest in the case prosecutors, in fact, face allegations of deliberately leaking evidence to the media, knowing that Ko supporters are likely to target them and in this way seeking to sway public opinion. In public statements, Ko also lied about the number of times he met with Sheen.
To this extent, Ko’s personal secretary, Hsu Chih-yu, remains at large. Hsu fled Taiwan for Japan as the investigation closed in around Ko in late August. Some speculation is that Hsu was tasked with passing on funds to Ko’s son, who lives in Japan. Hsu is a trusted associate of Ko due to being a relative of his. Hsu is now thought to have fled to Australia, based on her applying for an Electronic Travel Authorization there, seeing as Australia does not have an extradition treaty with Taiwan. Taiwanese authorities are seeking Hsu’s extradition nonetheless, seeing as she was a witness at meetings between Sheen and Ko.
In the meantime, the rally demonstrates to what extent the TPP has grown close to the KMT and other pan-Blue political parties, despite having previously emphasized its brand as a “white”
political party that is distinct from the pan-Blue camp. 21 KMT legislators, including Hsu Chiao-hsin, May Chin, and others were in attendance. Deep blue political parties such as “White Wolf” Chang An-lo’s Chinese Unification Promotion Party were also present at the rally, though such groups are known for their links to pro-unification organized crime groups.
But the KMT may continue to be divided on the issue of Ko. Indeed, the KMT was initially divided on whether to back Ko or not, because of the possibility that the corruption allegations would prove to be wide-ranging. And though some KMT politicians, such as Angela Ying, were implicated in the corruption allegations, the corruption allegations against Ko actually began from KMT city councilor Chung Hsiao-ping.
KMT legislators at the rally. Photo credit: TPP/Facebook
That the KMT may still be divided on the issue is reflected in the fact that KMT chair Eric Chu did not attend the rally, even while expressing support for it. Chu’s lack of attendance may be his attempt to distinguish his political brand from Fu at a time when Fu seems to overshadow Chu’s leadership of the KMT.
Huang Kuo-chang was the main TPP leader to preside over the rally, reflecting his paramount position in the TPP at present. Other major figures in the TPP were largely disgraced in preceding scandals, which may be what allowed Huang to become the dominant figure in the TPP, despite having joined the party relatively recently. It proves ironic for the former Sunflower Movement leader to share the stage with individuals he once opposed.
It may serve Huang’s interests for Ko to remain jailed, allowing him to remain in control of the TPP. Even so, as the TPP commits itself to the defense of Ko, this proves another way in which fidelity to Ko constitutes the core of the TPP’s political identity. Yet if the TPP increasingly leans into “Green Terror” allegations, as previously embraced by the KMT, this is likely to make the DPP indistinguishable from the KMT–the main difference between the TPP and the KMT would simply be that it is a “little blue” party smaller than the KMT. But a failure to differentiate one’s self from the larger party in one’s political camp has sealed the fate of many a third party in Taiwan, including the NPP that Huang previously led before his pivot to the TPP.