Pardoning former President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was an important issue that deserved careful consideration, the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said after the topic was raised during Wednesday’s televised policy session for DPP presidential hopefuls.
“Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) is right, [imprisoning Chen] is an important political event,” Tsai told the press on Wednesday night, responding to the remarks by Hsu during the event.
However, Tsai stopped short of issuing any concrete election promises on how she planned to deal with the imprisoned former president if elected next year.
“I’ll consider it carefully,” she said.
Asked about the issue, Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) campaign also said it would give Chen’s case “careful consideration.”
Chen and his wife have been found guilty by the Supreme Court of bribery and money laundering. Chen is serving a 17-and-a-half-year sentence at Taipei Prison, but his wife has not been imprisoned because of health problems.
DPP politicians have mostly attempted to downplay the case of the former president, as it courts undecided voters going into the legislative and presidential elections.
However, Hsu, a former DPP chairperson, said during the televised session that he would ask that Chen be granted a presidential pardon if elected next year.
“It’s not a special favor ... it’s a burden on society to keep him locked up,” he said. “I would rather Chen spend the rest of his days living overseas ... than see him continue to aggravate Taiwan’s domestic partisanship.”
With the final televised session of the presidential primaries now over, the DPP plans to hold official telephone polls to settle the nominations beginning on Monday.
DPP poll director Chen Chun-lin (陳俊麟) announced that the polling would take place over two days, but there was also a chance it could be extended to Wednesday, the earliest date the results can be announced.
Voters can expect calls between 6:30pm and 10pm during the two or three days, he said.
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