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EDITORIAL: With a KMT victory, theft is property

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has not even assumed office following president-elect Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) victory last month, and yet the wheels of the former party-industry cabal that have been rusting for the last eight years have already started to creak into motion.

Evidence of this was seen on Tuesday when Taipei City’s Urban Planning Commission decided to reclassify the land housing the former KMT-affiliated Institute of Policy Research and Development from “administrative” to “residential” use.

The move will enable the Yuan Lih Construction Corp ­— which bought the land from the KMT for NT$4.3 billion (US$133 million) in 2005 — to make as much as a NT$15 billion profit on the deal.

The 2005 sale was controversial for a number of reasons. First, there was the conflict of interest because Ma was KMT chairman at the time as well as Taipei mayor. The commission that decides on land zone issues is also part of the city’s Public Works Committee.

Second, the parcel of land also happened to be part of the KMT’s portfolio of stolen assets, or the land and property that it acquired during the party-state era that critics say should be returned to the state. Selling these properties for profit is hardly, as KMT Legislator Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡) put it recently, showing “goodwill” when dealing with such a controversial problem.

Construction companies aren’t in the habit of buying land that they cannot build on, so either Yuan Lih’s executives are psychic or they must have received assurances of the so-called “independent” commission’s decision.

Faced with accusations of impropriety, the party and city government’s responses were unsatisfactory, to say the least. The KMT defended the decision by saying that the final go-ahead has to be given by the Ministry of the Interior, but with a new KMT government being installed next month, the outcome of any ministry review seems a foregone conclusion.

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), meanwhile, lauded the committee for its independence. But one only has to look at the formation of the National Communications Commission (NCC) to understand the pan-blue camp’s idea of what constitutes an independent organization.

Maybe this is why the commission waited three years before approving the rezoning. Doing so while Ma was mayor might have compromised his Teflon veneer.

The process followed in this case may have been entirely legal, but something about the whole affair just doesn’t sit right. Conveniently, the Control Yuan, the government body charged with investigating corruption among public servants, has been inactive since late 2004 — when the pan-blue camp began a boycott of the president’s nominees.

Many will be outraged by what has happened this week and see it as a sign of things to come, but with the Democratic Progressive Party neutered in the legislature and no sign of effective administrative oversight on the horizon, there is little that can be done.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) warned in a March 3 television interview that those frustrated by a lack of representation in the pan-blue legislature may have to take to the streets to have their voices heard should the KMT win the presidency.

If many more cases like this come to light once the KMT enters the Presidential Office, then Chen’s words may prove to be prescient.
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