Presidential Office to unveil Control Yuan nominations

The Presidential Office will unveil four nominees for the Control Yuan today, Presidential Office spokesman Huang Chih-feng (黃志芳) said yesterday.

The local Chinese-language media yesterday reported that the four nominees are: former mayor of Keelung Lee Chin-yung (李進勇), Vice Chairman of the Council of Labor Affairs Kuo Chi-jen (郭吉仁), former fair trade commissioner Chao Yang-ching (趙揚清), and Lin Yun (林筠), a finance professor at National Taiwan University.

Huang, however, declined to confirm the list yesterday, saying that the Presidential Office will hold a formal news briefing today to unveil the nominees and the reasons for their nominations.

The four must be approved by the Legislative Yuan before taking office.

The reports yesterday quoted an anonymous source at the Presidential Office as saying the choice of nominees, who include two senior DPP figures, one senior KMT figure and one political independent, reflected a selection process that emphasized expertise over political affiliation.

But that did not stop widespread speculation in the media that links to the DPP -- and to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in particular -- were the decisive factors.

Lee and Kuo are DPP members who are close to Chen.

Lee was born in 1951 and has a law degree from National Taiwan University. He belongs to the DPP's Justice Alliance (正義連線) faction, to which Chen also belongs.

After losing his bid for re-election as mayor of Keelung last December, he declared his intention to contest the party's chairmanship before Chen formally announced that he would take the post.

Kuo was born in 1944 and, like Lee, is a master of laws of National Taiwan University. He previously served Chen as the director of Taipei's bureau of labor affairs while Chen was the city's mayor.

Chao, the KMT member, served as fair trade commissioner from 1996 while current KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) was premier.

When Chen entered office in 2000, Chao became one of only a few KMT officials to remain in their posts. In the latest Cabinet reshuffle, however, Chao refused Chen's offer of a post of senior adviser to the president and returned to her role as a professor.

The independent nominee, Lin, is a low-profile figure. She holds a Doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the US. After the DPP came to power in 2000, Lin was assigned to the board of directors of the state-run Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行).

If approved, the four will serve as Control Yuan members until the end of January 2005.

The two female nominees will bring to four the number of female Control Yuan members, in line with the DPP government's oft-expressed wish to recruit more female officials. The current female members are independents Ma Yi-kung (馬以工) and Ku Den-mei (古登美).