Last week, the entire Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), including party heavyweights and local candidates, intensified their attacks against the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for its assets looted from the state coffers. The DPP clearly plans to utilize this issue in order to put the KMT on the defensive, analysts say, and thereby help ensure that the pan-green camp wins a legislative majority in December.
"Although we are confident about our stand on other issues, including the arms procurement bill and the March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee Statute (三一九槍擊事件真調會條例), we find that people care a lot about the KMT's ill-gotten assets," said DPP Information and Culture Department Director Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦).
Cheng said that DPP polls showed that voters regarded the first two issues as wars of words between the pan-blue and pan-green camps, from which they feel distant. But the KMT assets issue hits a raw nerve, because the party has never tried to correct their past mistakes and has instead kept trying to cover them up, Cheng said.
"We found that voters were generally repulsed by the KMT's dishonesty," Cheng said. "Therefore, demanding that the KMT disgorge its ill-gotten gains will become our main campaign theme, and will also highlight the DPP's determination for reform."
Some high-level DPP campaign aides jokingly compared the KMT assets issue to a debit card and ATM machine it can use to steal votes from the pan-blue camp.
"If the KMT still brazenly holds on to the money and properties it stole from the country and refuses to return them, this issue will continue to be an ATM machine for the DPP to withdraw votes from the KMT," said DPP caucus whip Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯).
DPP Deputy Secretary-General Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) said whenever elections came around, high-ranking KMT officials always vow that they will deal with the party assets issue, yet they never seem to get around to doing that after they're elected.
"It was the KMT who gave the DPP the pin number of this `debit card' and it was the KMT who broke its promises," Chung said. "The KMT has disarmed itself in these elections because of its dishonesty and greed."
In fact, long before Taiwan's first "rotation of political parties" in 2000, the KMT violated social justice, Chung said. However, compared with other newly democratic countries that passed power from authoritarian regimes to democratic government, Taiwan is one of the few countries that did not undergo the course of "transitional justice," said Peter Huang (黃文雄), an advisor to the president and former president of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.
"The Chiang Kai-shek Memorial still stands there. Many people still worship Chiang's family and feel deep emotions whenever they recall them," Huang said.
According to the UN definition, transitional justice considers both judicial and nonjudicial responses to human rights crimes, which might include prosecuting individual perpetrators, offering reparations to victims of state-sponsored violence, establishing truth-seeking initiatives about past abuse and reforming institutions like the police and the courts.
"The KMT assets issue is also included in the concept of transitional justice," Chung said. The fact that Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) enthroned the Chiangs as the key promoters of Taiwan's democracy and said that the DPP raised the issue of the KMT's assets in order to sabotage the ethnic harmony were examples of how Taiwan has lacked transitional justice.
"From the perspectives of elections or justice, the KMT has to return money that does not belong to them and show sincerity on this issue if they do want to be recognized by the people of Taiwan," Chung said.
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
A magnitude 4.1 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 2:23pm today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was 5.4 kilometers northeast of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 34.9 km, according to the CWA. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was the highest in Hualien County, where it measured 2 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 1 in Yilan county, Taichung, Nantou County, Changhua County and Yunlin County, the CWA said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his
RSS