Print

Mail

wiki links

DPP bigwigs were once KMT members

Documents found in the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) history center show that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and other Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) bigwigs were once KMT members.

DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun, former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and Secretary-General of the Presidential Office Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) also joined the KMT between 1966 and 1974, the documents showed.

Director of the KMT's Party History Center Shao Ming-huang (邵銘煌) said Chen joined the party twice, in January and August 1960, when he was a law student at National Taiwan University.

Lu joined the party at the age of 30 while Hsieh applied to enter the party in 1966 at the age of 21 and Yu joined the party at the age of 22, Shao said.

He said all five signed applications and vowed to follow KMT regulations and the Three Principles of the People.

Membership screening committee members even lauded Chen and Lu for their excellent achievements at school and "correct" thought in the evaluation forms, the documents showed.

Lu's KMT membership was revoked in 1978 because of her criticism of the KMT. There are no records that Chen, Hsieh, Yu and Chiu canceled their memberships.

Lu and Yu said yesterday they had been forced to join the party during the authoritarian era, and they never paid any party fees.

"At that time, students had no choice but to join the party at the request of teachers. But I never paid any membership fees," Yu said.
This story has been viewed 2071 times.