Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday accused the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of letting its political agenda against the KMT and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) take precedence over public interests, following several groups’ request that Ma be barred from leaving the country as he may have to face potential prosecution.
“We regret to see Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎) — who sometimes speaks in his capacity as the DPP spokesman, while at other times, as the DPP’s lawyer or a private citizen — file various unsubstantiated charges against Ma yesterday [Tuesday] and request that the president’s right to leave the country be restricted after his term ends,” Hung wrote on Facebook.
Hung was referring to a move by Huang, the Taiwan Forever Association, the Northern Taiwan Society and the Taiwan Association of University Professors on Tuesday calling on the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office to launch investigations into alleged power abuse and corruption by Ma and to bar him from leaving the country.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Ma’s presidential immunity from prosecution is set to expire on May 20, when he is due to hand over power to president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
Hung said the DPP has reneged on many of its pledges and policies, including the party’s attempt to avoid any “state to state” dictum from its proposed bill on monitoring cross-strait agreements, its alleged plan to open the nation’s doors to US pork containing ractopamine residue and its welcome for more Chinese tourists to Taiwan.
“At a time when the nation’s eyes are fixed on the developments following Japan’s unreasonable confiscation of a Taiwanese fishing boat [on Monday], what these people are thinking about is how to cook up charges to bring down Ma and the KMT,” Hung said.
Following the deportation of several Taiwanese fraud suspects from Kenya to China earlier this month, a case that could have brought both sides of the Taiwan Strait together to fight crimes and strive for the wellbeing of their people, the DPP sought to obscure the issue and manipulated the incident into an issue of human rights persecution, Hung said.
“Now, in the face of Japan’s forced seizure of Taiwanese fishermen, how come the DPP has stopped caring about human rights and does not fight for these men’s rights?” she said.
Hung said it remains to be seen whether Tsai’s calls for humility in her victory speech after the Jan. 16 presidential election would be just another example of the DPP’s habit of “saying one thing, but doing another.”
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