Liberty Times: The opposition argues that you should apologize publicly for Wang Wen-cheng's (王文正) involvement as a middleman in the speakership vote-buying case because it was you who chose him. Yet you haven't made a formal apology so far. Why?
Frank Hsieh (
PHOTO: LIAO RAY-SHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
On Dec. 20, I telephoned all the elected city councilors and urged them not to support Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄) for the speakership. As I heard that Wang was gathering support for Chu, I gave him a call too. Wang told me that Chu would be elected and that that was the only way to get the city council under control. But I didn't agree with him.
In our conversation on the phone, he did not tell me anything about handling any bribes. Why would he? His father's funeral was held on Dec. 22, so I asked him if he had accompanied Chu on his visit to see city councilors to gain their support. Wang replied that "I am now wearing a beard [a Chinese custom when a relative dies] and mourning for my father, so who would let me into their homes?" So I told him that he could use this as an excuse and not get involved in the speaker's election.
If Chu had lost the speaker's election, my situation wouldn't be worse. It would have been better for me if Tsai Ching-yuan (蔡慶源) or any other DPP city councilor was elected.
Chu has a controversial background, so I thought it would start an outcry if Chu were elected. So I didn't see eye to eye with Wang on this point. But Wang knows Chu well, so for Chu to be elected as speaker would be more convenient for Wang as Chu would be a useful liaison between the city government and city council.
Some say that I should make a public apology, but this actually means Wang is already under trial. All the revelations about Wang's involvement in the vote-buying charges come from the media. Wang himself has not admitted anything, nor has the prosecutor's office given me any legal documents. Should I just follow the media reports, put Wang on trial and send down a guilty verdict?
If Wang is guilty simply because of some media reports, then why would society still need the judicial system? The media needs to serve the public's right to know, so it needs to report on the judicial procedures. It would be dangerous if the media wants to play judge.
It's also clear to me that my image would be tarnished if I make a public apology at this moment. But of course, if the prosecutors formally indict Wang, or I ask him face to face and have his involvement confirmed, I would apologize. But not now.
I also had a candid talk with Wang regarding the reports that he had delivered the bribes in his office. His reply was that Chu and his wife did come to his office and were talking to other people. But Wang makes friends with people easily and many people come to his office every day. Wang asked me how the money could be delivered when there were all those people around? But of course, I would need to apologize if the money turns out to have been delivered in the office.
Some also say that, as mayor, I would definitely have known about Wang's involvement in the case and therefore should take the political responsibility. But sometimes a father doesn't know things about his own son, much less a mayor about his subordinate. If such an argument can be made, does that mean a man's wife should also be jailed simply because her husband commits a crime? Don't people say that one's bedfellow knows the other best?
LT: Then how do you see the expulsion of DPP city councilors?
Hsieh: The information on the DPP city councilors' involvement in the case was all revealed by the prosecutors' office's spokesman to the media. Wang's situation is different.
LT: The prosecutors' office revealed that Yu Huang Temple's (玉皇宮) NT$2.8 million political donation to you was made payable in five different instalments to a woman surnamed Lu. What do you say about this?
Hsieh: It's another war of words. The DPP has long had a standard procedure in dealing with political donations. Yu Huang Temple gave the money to Wang and then Wang gave the money directly to my campaign headquarters and informed me of it. I then asked him to report to party headquarters, so the money went from the campaign headquarters to the party system. But I found out in my inquiry afterward that one of the checks had already been cashed by my campaign headquarters. So I have admitted that my campaign headquarters took a political donation from the Yu Huang Temple, and the amount of the money has been verified. These comments do not make any difference.
If I can be frank, a candidate is as busy as can be during the campaign period. Who would have time to care about the donations? Kaohsiung City has 11 districts. We set up a campaign office in each district and there was more than one office in some districts. Headquarters gave NT$ 50,000 to each district office to pay for part of their expenses and each office tried to raise funds to cover other expenses. Some offices couldn't get donations, but that didn't matter.
Theoretically, a candidate can deny any relations with how the campaign offices raise funds, how much they collects and how they use the donation, but I am not that kind of person. I admitted that there was a political donation from the beginning.
Despite the difficulty of controlling the operation of campaign offices, I laid down some principles -- any donation related to public services, MRT construction, the sex industry and construction projects undertaken by the city government must be returned. The donations that we received and found out later that they were in violation of the principle were all returned. This is to avoid any conflict of interest.
LT: Why did the Yu Huang Temple (玉皇宮) contribute to your support group but not your campaign headquarters?
Hsieh: This is because of the Election and Recall Law's (選舉罷免法) maximum limit on campaign expenditure. The limit for the Kaohsiung mayoral election is NT$18 million. But would people who are running campaigns spend such a little amount of money? It's inconceivable. For instance, I reported my campaign expenditure as NT$18 million [to the Election Commission], and reported the other NT$68 million as my support group's expenditure. But I will still be punished [for violating the regulation.]
Huang Jun-ying (黃俊英) reported that he prepared NT$9 million for the campaign, and received NT$9 million in donations, bringing his total campaign expenditure to NT$18 million as well. But, do you believe that? I am curious about how [Taipei City Mayor] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) reported his campaign expenditure, too.
Candidates use many kinds of devices to report campaign expenditure. For instance, campaign expenditure might be NT$18 million on the surface, but the real expenditure is NT$80 million. How do the politicians deal with the illegal NT$62 million? Somebody would just hide it, and the money would just become secret money.
Candidates might give away to contributors receipts which they got from, say, purchasing desks and chairs, or they might create fake receipts, with the result that there is no way to investigate how candidates' fund their campaigns. The donations could look like funding for desks and chairs, but they actually go directly to the politician.
I am a very cautious individual. We keep every receipt for every single donation.
The real purpose of issuing receipts to donors is not for tax deductions but for identifying donations, because donors don't care about small amounts of money like tax deductions. Also, it ensures donations are spent on legal purposes, rather than going into politicians' pockets. This is not actually required by current regulations. We do it to create transparent accounts.
The KMT criticized me, but how much did they receive in donations? And where were they from? They can't explain. The KMT spent several billion New Taiwan dollars on past presidential campaigns. Where are those accounts? The KMT has no system regarding its accounts. The DPP is trying to create an accounting system, but the DPP is fiercely criticized by the KMT. Is this fair?
The Yu Huang Temple donated NT$2.8 million to me, but it donated more to the KMT, including in the last presidential election and the recent mayoral elections.
So, I think that we should revise the Election and Recall law, abolishing the limit on campaign expenditure, so that nobody would need to create any fake accounts.
Also, none of the countries allowing TV advertising, like Taiwan, does so without restrictions. The US deals with it by restricting the amount of advertising that each candidate can purchase. Taiwan could revise its current regulations by imitating other countries' systems.
LT: Did DPP Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) also criticize the DPP's conduct on political donations?
Hsieh: He probably misunderstood the situation. The DPP has carried out this sort of practice for years. They [Tuan and other legislators in the party's New Tide faction] might not know this practice very well, but I am familiar with it, since I have served as chair of the party.
Their faction is doing the same thing. For instance, when an enterprise is going to donate NT$1 million to them, their faction heads would have to do the same thing. They should ask their faction heads.
LT: Do you think that there might be some other motives behind the allegations against you in this case?
Hsieh: Everything can be judged by the public, but it's very bad for somebody to say something untrue. For instance, some newspapers reported, "Frank Hsieh said that he doesn't know [chief of the Yu Huang Temple] Hsu Wen-liang (許文良)." Hsu, of course, was upset when the media quoted the reports and asked for his comment. But, I never ever said that I didn't know Hsu.
I didn't know him very well, but we started actively communicating after I took office. He was an adviser to the city government.
I told reporters that I knew Hsu Wen-liang, when reporters asked me after I came back from the US. The newspapers then reported, "Frank Hsieh changed his account." Reporters told me that I had said I didn't know Hsu Wen-liang when I was in the US, but I had never said that at all.
The pan-blue camp would have to strike the Yu family [the family of Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲) and Yu Chen Yueh-ying (余陳月瑛)] and me down, if they want to win Kaohsiung in 2004. So, they just smeared us. Since cracking down on `black gold' politics has helped President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) reputation to improve, somebody has tried to worsen it by manipulating the situation. And they're doing it by relating the case to Frank Hsieh. The media have jumped to conclusions. They have reported the case repeatedly, and attacked me in their editorials by quoting legislators' remarks. This is to create the impression that a heavyweight politician is behind the case itself. If Chen didn't investigate the case, people would say that Chen has no guts. This is a terrible political battle.
LT: Will the vote-buying scandal affect the relationship between the city government and the council?
Hsieh: From the city government's perspective, we hope that the relationship will be stable, to enable us to fight for a better economy. But it can't be helped. The council will be unsettled for a while.
Under the regulations, councilors can only be impeached after they have been at their posts for a year or longer.
The KMT wants to impeach the speaker. But most of the KMT councilors have either quit their memberships or been expelled by the party. How can it impeach the speaker with only one remaining KMT councilor?
There's no point in launching impeachment proceedings now. The KMT's plan to delete the provision that speakers may only be impeached after a year or longer is not reasonable to me.
I support the idea of amending the regulations to impeach councilors who are prosecuted for corruption, regardless of whether they have been at their post for a year.
I think that prosecution should be the standard, since conviction by a court during the first trial would take at least a year, which would make the result meaningless.
Suspending these councilors' duties, but not holing any partial re-election is not appropriate. If half of the councilors' duties were suspended, the council would not be able to review any proposal.
If the public's desire to remove these councilors from their positions is strong enough, we will definitely find a way.
LT: Do you think that this is the worst crisis in your political life?
Hsieh: I don't think so, especially as we all understand the incident very well. I just feel a little sorry for myself after I receive a few phone calls comforting me.
Translated by Lin Chieh-yu
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