Last year was a truly turbulent year for Taiwan. Economic doldrums have increased unemployment and the crime rate while political wrangling has escalated along with the mayoral elections in Taipei and Kaohsiung, leading the country to a year of social chaos and turmoil.
No one would have imagined that a massive corruption imbroglio would break in the Kaohsiung City Council just before the year came to an end. More than 30 councilors are now suspected to be involved in the vote-buying scandal. The newly elected Kaohsiung City Council speaker Chu An-hsiung (
Councilors suspected of accepting bribes from Chu include not just those from the KMT, but also self-proclaimed "clean" DPP and PFP members. Besides, many of them are first-term rookie councilors. Apparently, vote-buying has tainted the country's political institutions to an astonishing degree.
In recent days, prosecutors and investigators have taken extensive, rarely seen action, exposing Chu's illegal activities and causing an uproar across the country. This has forced the various political parties to begin a house-cleaning act, expelling or suspending the membership of councilors who took bribes. The daring acts of the prosecutors this time in facing up to the powerful political forces is certainly a precious New Year gift for the people of Taiwan.
Everyone in Taiwan knows that political corruption has long overshadowed Taiwan's political arena, eating away at the foundations of the country's democratic system.
In the KMT era such outrageous vote-buying practices were tolerated on account of political considerations. The judiciary was also perfunctory in carrying out its duties due to inappropriate interference from the KMT. Even when elected officials were indicted for vote-buying (and a vast majority of those indicted were KMT members), only a handful of them were eventually found guilty. What's even more ridiculous is that, with a small number of exceptions, most trials did not conclude until long after the indicted officials had already served out their terms of office. Besides, in most cases the punishments were very light. As a result, politicians were completely unafraid of justice. There was absolutely no deterrence effect, whether in the local or central government levels.
We can see from the public's response to the vote-buying case that people in Taiwan expect their government to make political reforms its top priority. The content of the reforms should include preventing a repeat of the vote-buying scandal, monitoring political horse-trading in various levels of government officials and cutting off the connections between political parties and "black gold" figures.
However, it is not enough to have only the prosecutors working hard to expose the crimes. We also need the full cooperation of the judges in order to quickly handle cases in which there is adequate evidence. This would let would-be offenders know that they will have to pay a high price for wrongdoing, thereby stopping them from violating the law. Only when the judiciary becomes a vigorous defender of social justice can Taiwan's democratic system undergo a transformation in the new year, leaving behind the days of instability. This should be the most important wish of the people of Taiwan on the first day of the new year.
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