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Editorial: Hoisted by their own petard

Another tempest in a teapot, more political hypocrisy -- has there ever been a politician in Taiwan willing to stand on principles when their personal interests are challenged?

Former interior minister Chang Po-ya (張博雅) sparked the latest brouhaha after she insinuated that her failure to win approval to be vice president of the Examination Yuan was linked to legislators who had offered to vote for her if she paid them. KMT and PFP lawmakers were quick to jump into the fray by claiming that they had seen people paying for votes for Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文), the nominee for Examination Yuan president, inside the legislature. They quoted prices ranging from NT$2 million to NT$10 million per vote. The underlying theme was that the DPP had stopped at nothing to win approval for Yao, but didn't pull out all the stops for Chang because she isn't a DPP member.

Newspapers and TV call-in shows pounced on the story, turning their guns on the DPP and TSU. The accusations from Chang and people like KMT Legislator Li Chia-chin (李嘉進) triggered demands for the Ministry of Justice to investigate the vote-buying allegations. Meanwhile, Chang garnered sympathy as someone who had been sold out by the DPP. Some people encouraged her to get even with the DPP by running for Kaohsiung City mayor against DPP incumbent Frank Hsieh (謝長廷).

However, Chang and Li were not so willing to tell their stories once prosecutors launched an investigation. Both played hide-and-seek with prosecutors for several days -- until the prosecutors threatened to ask the courts to issue summons to them. When Chang and Li finally showed up at the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office on Wednesday, they had changed their stories, saying that they had merely overheard allegations of vote-buying. After leaving the prosecutors' office Chang told reporters that she had never said she saw people buying or selling votes inside the legislature. She had only said "one of us" had seen it. Li, in turn, said his responsibility was only to blow the whistle and that looking for evidence was the prosecutor's job.

Such irresponsible sophistry and groundless claims are not just ludicrous -- they are libelous. Chang has seriously damaged her career with this mud-slinging vendetta. If she has an axe to grind, it should be with the opposition parties which had promised to support her nomination. Chang lost, by one vote, because both the KMT and the PFP banned their lawmakers from the legislative floor that day to prevent them from voting for Yao.

As an independent, Chang's political career has always been a balancing act between the DPP and the KMT. Chang's political support stems largely from the admiration and respect for her mother, Hsu Shih-hsien (許世賢), who resisted the KMT's authoritarian rule and fought for democracy during the martial law era. For her heroic acts she was nicknamed the "Matsu of Taiwan democracy."

How disappointing to see how low Hsu's daughter has fallen that she would stoop to such slander. It would appear that her years of power and privilege have gone to her head. The public has learned to expect little more than such outlandish comments from KMT politicians and lawmakers, but such actions should be condemned nevertheless. The same can't be said of Chang. Both Chang and Li should publicly apologize for their false accusations and for creating yet another divisive scandal.
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