Meanwhile, Hsieh’s office issued a statement denying that he had taken money from Chen Shui-bian during “this year’s presidential election,” adding that it was natural for party members to help raise funds for candidates.
A staffer for Su denied that he had ever taken money from the former president, but thanked him for his campaigning efforts.
Chen Chu said she had received “resources distributed by the party headquarters” when she was running for Kaohsiung mayor in 2006. She said it had been the former president’s duty to raise funds for the DPP given his seniority, but his problem now had nothing to do with party fundraising.
The DPP’s Taipei chapter decided yesterday to suspend the party rights of Wu, her son Chen Chih-chung (陳致中) and daughter-in-law Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚). They have 15 days to appeal the decision with the DPP’s Central Review Committee.
DPP Secretary-General Wang Tuoh (王拓), speaking on behalf of the party, said that if there were widespread problems in declaring leftover campaign funds across party lines, then the law should be amended to resolve the problem.
However, the DPP did not know about individual fund declarations, Wang said.
Meanwhile the DPP caucus convener and financial management director Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said most of what Chen Hsing-yu said was true, and that he had received fundraising help from her father.
However, in regards to political contributions, Chen Shui-bian had opened the biggest Pandora’s box in politics, he said.
Every political party and figure has problems of this nature — the problem was not who received money from whom, but that there was no firm set of laws to regulate fundraising, Ker said.
In an exclusive interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) yesterday, DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said that she expected the party’s anti-corruption committee to investigate all members who may have involvement in corruption.
The committee has the authority to initiate investigations and to rule in any corruption cases, Tsai said after a meeting with DPP representatives yesterday. In addition to the former president, the committee would “investigate all the cases that occurred in the past,” so that the DPP could be answerable to the public, she said.
She also said the DPP will rely on small donations in the future
Meanwhile, Ker said that while the Chen Shui-bian scandal would hurt fundraising efforts in the short run, the party would continue to push its small-donations program, since it would be beneficial in the long run, the Central News Agency reported.
In related news, Control Yuan President Wang Chien-shien told reporters yesterday that any public official found to have helped the former president deposit large sums of money abroad will be punished.
“The Control Yuan will investigate any crimes or malfeasance committed by government officials, but we must discuss how and when we should intervene [in the investigation of this case],” he said.
“Former president Chen’s case involves not only the former president but also the former director-general of the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau [Yeh Sheng-mao (葉盛茂)] and may also involve other government officials,” he said.
“Those who have helped Chen with his bad deeds should also be brought to justice,” he said.
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