Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his wife Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) yesterday withdrew from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to apologize for the disgrace he has brought to the party by mismanaging campaign funds.
“Today I have to say sorry to all of the DPP members and supporters. I let everyone down, caused you humiliation and failed to meet your expectations. My acts have caused irreparable damage to the party,” Chen said in a written statement issued yesterday afternoon.
“I love the DPP deeply and am proud of being a DPP member. To express my deepest regrets to all DPP members and supporters, I announce my withdrawal from the DPP immediately. My wife Wu Shu-jen is also withdrawing from the party,” he said.
He reiterated that he had not pocketed any of the funds.
“I am not greedy for money. I made a serious mistake. I don’t expect the public to forgive me, but I will take responsibility for what I did. Although I am no longer a DPP member, I am willing to accept an investigation by the party’s integrity committee,” the statement said.
Chen urged his supporters not to abandon the DPP’s long-term efforts to defend national sovereignty because of his personal mistakes.
The former president called on the public to continue supporting the DPP.
The statement was issued one day after Chen called a news conference in which he admitted that Wu had wired overseas an unspecified amount of money that Chen had received for his two Taipei mayoral and two presidential election campaigns between 1993 and 2004.
In a televised news conference on Thursday, Chen apologized to the public for not clearly accounting for his campaign contributions, admitting that failing to report the funds was “something that is not permitted by the law.”
Under campaign laws, candidates are required to report all campaign spending, but they were not required to report all political donations until the passage of the Political Contributions Act in 2004.
The former president said he was unaware that his wife had wired the surplus funds from his campaigns abroad until early this year.
Prior to Chen’s press conference on Thursday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) earlier the same day said Swiss prosecutors had asked Taiwanese authorities to verify the origin of funds in Swiss bank accounts under the name of Chen’s daughter-in-law, Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚).
The Ministry of Justice later confirmed that it had received the request through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).
Chen rejected Hung’s allegation that the funds wired overseas could be connected to his “state affairs fund” or a recent scandal involving a botched attempt to win diplomatic recognition from Papua New Guinea (PNG).
The Chinese-language Next Magazine reported on Wednesday that the Egmont Group, an international anti-money laundering network, had alerted the Taiwanese government that the former first lady had transferred large sums to several foreign bank accounts.
Next said that soon after the “state affairs fund” case erupted in 2006, Wu closed bank accounts belonging to herself and her husband as well as accounts created under the names of her son Chen Chih-chung (陳致中) and daughter Chen Hsing-yu (陳幸妤), which were used for stock trading.
Wu remitted NT$300 million overseas through various bank accounts belonging to her daughter-in-law and other members of her family, the magazine said.
RSS