KMT tells DPP to reflect and work to regain public trust

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday urged the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to conduct "deep introspection" in order to regain the public's confidence following a string of corruption allegations involving family members and close aides of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

KMT caucus whip Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛) issued the call when responding to reporters' questions about the results of a public opinion poll that showed 56 percent of the public view the DPP as "unclean."

Pointing out that the poll results are a warning to the DPP, Pan called on Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) to get to the bottom of all the corruption scandals that have surfaced.

"If Su fails to dig up the facts behind all these corruption scandals, it may mean that he is trying to cover up something," she said, adding that "the DPP would not be able to rebuild public trust in it if Su were to try to help cement Chen's power instead of drawing a clear line with Chen."

Although Chen survived a presidential recall motion at the Legislative Yuan on June 27, Pan said that the 86 DPP lawmakers' decision to boycott the vote underlined the fact that the ruling party was doing its best to protect Chen while seeking to maintain its distance from him.

At a time when the people hope the premier will show a strong determination to probe all the scandals, Su should "stop beating around the bush in an attempt to divert public attention from the issue" and should "conduct deep self-reflection and make the appropriate adjustments for a new start," Pan said.