The large number of media reports on public figures' infidelities has the public questioning the impact of sex scandals on politicians' careers.
According to a survey by the TVBS poll center on Aug. 12, 61 percent of people believe that a politician's personal life should be a model for the public, and only 28 percent think that it is no one else's business.
However, people were divided on whether it is more important for a politician to manage his marriage well or do his job well.
Forty-five percent percent of those surveyed thought that it doesn't matter whether a politician has a happy marriage, saying it is more important that he performs his job well. Still, 44 percent disagreed with that statement.
The results help explain why involvement in an extra-marital affair has become a moral stigma leaving politicians open to attacks from rivals and why allegations of sex scandals crop up during election campaigns.
Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒), editor in chief of Contemporary Monthly, has attributed the phenomenon to the profound influence of traditional Confucianism, which sets a high moral standard for politicians, on Chinese people.
"No matter how much liberal thought has been introduced to this modern society, some deep-rooted traditional values continue to exist. It is this latent cultural factor that makes negative publicity related to sex so forceful in election campaigns," Chin once said at a discussion on the topic held by the Taiwan Media Watch Foundation (
This has been proven in the case of many politicians, the most recent being Yao Chia-wen (
One woman threatened to disclose evidence of Yao's infidelity, which she claimed was sufficient to "unseat another DPP chairman and threaten Yao's Examination Yuan presidency."
In Yao's case, the allegations did not appear to sidetrack his campaign, however, because no evidence or witness came out.
Still, in an attempt to put the charges behind him, Yao and his wife, DPP Legislator Chou Ching-yu (
During appearances at the legislature, Yao would hold Chou's hand and he once told his wife "I love you" during a legislative session to review his nomination.
While such allegations appear potentially damaging, involvement in a sex scandal does not necessarily lead to political defeat.
This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that many legislators were elected, though they are known to be unfaithful to their wives. In particular, their infidelity seems tolerable to their constituents as long as they keep their families intact and their wives express no objection.
For example, DPP Legislator Cheng Yu-chen (鄭余鎮), who made headlines last month for eloping to the US with his aide Sophie Wang (王筱嬋), has faced numerous allegations of affairs during his 30 years of marriage to Lu Pei-yin (呂珮茵) and even has an illegitimate daughter.
Well aware of the situation, Cheng's constituents in Hsinchuang, Taipei County, still threw their support behind him until he announced his decision to divorce his wife to marry Wang. Former supporters said Cheng "has been dismissed" for the "ungrateful" manner with which he treated Lu.
An older case involves former premier Chang Chun-hsiung (
Ker Chien-ming (
Politicians involved in sex scandals usually have little problem surviving multi-seat elections such as those for the legislature, in which they only need to appeal to a small group of loyal voters. However they may feel the impact of such a scandal in a presidential or mayoral race.
In these single-seat elections, candidates usually need to attract neutral voters who have no specific political affiliation and tend to make a last-minute decision as to which candidate to support.
As shown in a Power News poll in February 2000 -- one month before the presidential poll -- 24 percent of the people had not decided on which presidential candidate to vote for. For these people, a main criterion for them was the candidate's character, according to the survey.
Luo Wen-jia (
"The target of campaign publicity is not those whose support you already have nor those who will never support you. In other words, the scope may be narrowed to the median voters," Luo said.
A victim of this kind of negative publicity is former Kaohsiung mayor Wu Den-yih (
Wu believes that allegations of his having an affair were one of the many factors responsible for his defeat. The allegations were backed up by a taped conversation between Wu and the alleged mistress, which the Kaohsiung District Court later determined determined to have been faked.
"Justice has been upheld, though it is delayed," Wu said.
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