A full 12 days after the tainted oil scandal broke, Pingtung County Commissioner Tsao Chi-hung (曹啟鴻) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) finally, after repeated exhortations, offered an apology on behalf of the county government, admitting that much was owed to the farmer who exposed the scandal in the first place. Tsao also announced that the heads of the county’s health, environmental protection, urban and rural development, agriculture and land administration bureaus would be officially standing down in November to take responsibility for the scandal, but not until they had completed a thorough investigation of wayward factories.
Even if the Pingtung County Government now has the benefit of hindsight, for it to give this joint public apology so long after the event, together with a promise that those responsible will fall on their swords, one does get the feeling that if the various heads are to resign, then they should do so with immediate effect. Why drag things out, why the need to give them a further two months’ grace?
Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Wen-ta (邱文達), too, is currently sitting out a self-imposed detention. It is almost as if the government would grind to a halt if appointees like these, who should resign, but have decided to remain in place, did not pass on the baton.
There should be public support behind the choice of public appointees, for without this support, the appointee’s right to be in that position lacks legitimacy and a mandate, giving them no basis for clinging onto their jobs. They should leave it to their successors to clean up in the wake of the tainted oil scandal. Their successors will have to take responsibility for how they fare. We live in a democracy. Nobody is indispensable.
The five Pingtung County bureau heads have announced their intention to resign, but they should leave quickly and quietly: “Very quietly I take my leave, as quietly as I came here, gently I flick my sleeves, not even a wisp of cloud will I bring away,” to quote Xu Zhimo (徐志摩).
After all, the moment a political appointee loses public support, then the carpet is immediately pulled from under their feet as far as legitimacy is concerned. And when the public rescinds its authorization, the public officials’ position becomes untenable and they are left with no choice but to resign.
If we allow these people to postpone their departure, and just sit back and watch as they get their affairs in order to their own satisfaction, before they do so, then it is hardly having them fall on their own sword.
It is more like giving them the ability to make their own bed to lie on. How is this sorting out the wheat from the chaff, how is it forcing out the bad and replacing it with a better alternative? What is the point of having somebody step down in the first place?
Having officials resign to take responsibility for their poor performance in this way is a betrayal of the public. It is essentially saying they are not taking responsibility for their mistakes at all, which runs counter to the spirit of the politics of responsibility.
In other words, Tsao’s announcement that the five heads would roll, but only after a couple of months have gone by to give them time to sort things out, is little more than a performance piece. At the same time it is making scapegoats of them. In his own reluctance to take political responsibility, he is parrying the blame, sacrificing the knights to save the queen.
This is giving the worst possible example. On the surface, the five officials appear to be taking the fall to accept responsibility for their failings, but the reality is each one of them is being allowed to dictate the manner of their own exit and this is a betrayal of the electorate.
Chu Yen-kuei is a lecturer of law at National Open University.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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