The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has relied too much on former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) over the past eight years, leading the party to lose sight of its own capability in making its own judgment, DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday.
As a result, Chen’s personal mistakes have become the party’s crisis, Tsai said in a speech delivered yesterday in Tainan County.
All party members should be responsible for the Chen incident and should engage in introspection, she said.
The morale of DPP supporters has been largely dampened by recent money-laundering allegations against Chen.
“The next period of DPP history will be a DPP without Chen, without a hero, but one where everybody in the party works together, walks together and shoulders responsibility together,” she said. “Only by doing that can we rebuild the party.”
Tsai said the party would reform its policy-making process so that the party’s policies more accurately represent the views of most members of the DPP, not just a few people’s.
At a separate setting yesterday, former president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) told reporters that she had refused to believe many rumored allegations against Chen until Chen himself admitted on Thursday during a press conference that he had not faithfully accounted for his campaign expenses in his two mayoral elections and two presidential elections between 1993 and 2004, and that his wife had wired the surplus funds abroad.
“The incident hurt the party and the supporters,” she said. “The party seriously needs to engage in introspection.”
DPP legislative whip Chang Hwa-kuan (張花冠) said the party’s anti-corruption committee should launch an investigation into Chen’s scandal and release the result to the public.
Meanwhile, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday declined to comment on Chen’s withdrawing from the DPP on Friday after admitting his mishandling of campaign funds.
“I will not comment any more on what is happening with Chen Shui-bian,” Lee said while speaking at the annual gathering of the Association of the Friends of Lee Teng-hui in Taipei.
Lee had issued a statement on Friday dismissing Chen’s accusation that he had used personal guards’ names to transfer about US$1 billion abroad in 2002.
When approached by reporters after the gathering, Lee said yesterday “there’s no need to comment any more” on the Chen incident and his accusations.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY MO YAN-CHIH
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