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EDITORIAL: Is history bound to repeat itself?

It was with a sense of comeuppance that the Integrity Committee of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) suspended Taitung County Commissioner Kuang Li-chen (鄺麗貞) from the party last week for spending millions of taxpayer dollars on overseas inspection trips.

Kuang’s probable downfall is long overdo and highlights some of the problems still plaguing Taiwan’s nascent democracy — problems like unqualified officials being elected in the first place.

When the former KMT Taitung County commissioner Wu Chun-li (吳俊立) was convicted of corruption and vote buying back in 2005, he did something far-fetched even by Taiwanese political standards.

In a move that would be laughable if it weren’t so outrageous, Wu “divorced” Kuang, his then-wife, so he could sidestep the legal restrictions on appointing a spouse or relative as his deputy, and in effect retain the commissioner seat.

More astonishing still was the fact that not only did many members of the pan-blue camp come to Wu’s defense and support Kuang in the subsequent by-election — including President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) — but the electorate in Taitung gave her an overwhelming victory at the polls.

The current Kuang kafuffle first broke a week ago when she and 10 Taitung County township heads returned from an overseas “investigation tour” where they spent 13 days jet-setting around Europe while her constituents suffered in the aftermath of Typhoon Fung-wong.

She has since been justifiably criticized by the media for leaving the country before the typhoon, spending public funds for trips of questionable value, possibly in the hope of securing support from the Taitung heads with whom she traveled.

Kuang has claimed that the trip and seven others like it were legal. This may be true, but there is still something wrong with an official flying off to Europe on the taxpayer’s dime while her constituents are left to clean up a natural disaster.

The case, more than anything else, serves as a symbol of some of the systemic problems still afflicting Taiwan’s democracy and the elected officials who feel they can flout the law because of a lack of tough legal mechanisms to keep them in check.

Although the KMT suspended her from the party, top leaders have been mute on how long Kuang’s membership would be suspended. This is somewhat problematic because the party seems to be biding its time to see the results of the prosecutor’s investigation before making a final decision.

The silver lining in this morass is perhaps that finally the government will begin to fill in the gray areas that exist for bureaucratic excess and make these politicians more accountable to the electorate.

But only time will tell. Kuang’s suspension is just that and she hasn’t yet been kicked out of the party. With county commissioner elections scheduled for December of next year, it will be interesting to see whether or not Kuang will be on the ballot — or her “ex-husband” if he manages to beat the legal system on appeal.

But ultimately it was the electorate in Taitung who gave Kuang her mandate in the first place, knowing perfectly well what kind of populist politician she was. It is they — and by extension the electorate in Taiwan — who will have to decide whether or not they want Kuang and her ilk to serve as elected representatives. Judging from past experience, however, we don’t have much to hope for.
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