Former National Police Adminis-tration director-general Yao Kao-chiao (
Yao was expelled, with the approval of the KMT Central Standing Committee, for throwing his support behind the DPP's Frank Hsieh (
The KMT's candidate in the race, Huang Jun-ying (黃俊英), secured 47 percent of the vote, losing to Hsieh, who won 50 percent support.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Prior to Huang's nomination as a candidate, Yao had been a possible KMT nominee, along with Kaohsiung City Council speaker Huang Chi-chuan (
Chen Kang-chin (
"Members of the party's Evaluation and Discipline Committee were filled with indignation with regard to Yao's conduct," Chen said.
"All felt that expulsion was not a severe enough punishment."
Committee members were not the only ones angry with Yao. The KMT Union, in a statement last week, called on Yao to return all his paychecks for the past two years while he was vice convener of the internal affairs department at the National Policy Foundation, a KMT-sponsored think tank.
The KMT Union urged Yao to do so in order to demonstrate his honesty and integrity.
"Yao has been cultivated by the party for his entire life [in police work], yet now he's turned to the enemy's camp," Chen said, adding that Yao has lost his integrity in recent years.
Yao was once a member of the party's Central Standing Committee, the party's highest decision-making body.
Although Yao expressed regret for having been expelled, he defended his decision to support Hsieh and said that he is willing to forgive the KMT's accusations that have been made since the party lost the Kaohsiung race.
"As a faithful KMT member, I am not the only one who has been expelled or had to leave the party. I believe people can judge right from wrong," Yao said in a statement responding to the disciplinary action. "And time will prove I am right."
Yao said that of all the Kao-hsiung mayoral hopefuls, he found only Hsieh placed importance on public order, safety and police officers' well-being.
While Huang Jun-ying had never mentioned a word to Yao about public order, Yao said Hsieh had visited him several times to discuss the issue.
"That was why I offered him [Hsieh] my advice [with regard to public order]. I did so simply from my position as a citizen," Yao said.
"Unfortunately my decision was cruelly insulted by some KMT members. I had no choice but to show my public support for Hsieh," he said.
During Yao's decades-long career in police work, he has served as a director of Kaohsiung City Police, president of the Taiwan Police Academy and deputy director-general of the National Police Administration.
Yao was president of the Central Police University from 1995-1996 before he was made director-general of the National Police Administration in June 1996.
Yao, however, resigned form his post in August the following year along with the then premier Lien Chan (
Former Taoyuan County commissioner Liu Pang-you (
Yao then served as an adviser to the Executive Yuan before being tapped by then premier Vincent Siew (
Along with other Cabinet-level officials, Yao turned over his post in March 2000 when Chen Shui-bian (
Last December, Yao unsuccessfully ran for a legislative seat.
Although Chinese-language media have reported the possibility that Hsieh might invite Yao to join his Kaohsiung administrative team, Hsieh said that he has never talked about such issues with Yao.
"As long as a person is talented, I am open to any recommendations," Hsieh said on Saturday. "Regardless of my party affiliation, I welcome talented people with good character who are willing to be public servants."
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift