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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