The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) could not agree yesterday on whether to ask political appointees from former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration to resign.
DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) told reporters after the party’s Central Executive Committee meeting that the party needed to examine the overall situation and individual cases before it reaches a decision.
Cheng expressed regret over calls made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for the resignation of Chen’s appointees.
Cheng criticized the KMT for “lacking democratic bearing,” “disrespecting professionalism” and “sabotaging the system” because some of the appointees work for independent agencies and so their tenure was protected by law.
“It is obvious that the reason the KMT wants them to leave their posts is because it wants to put its own people in the positions,” he said. “It is a scheme cooked up to divert media attention from the KMT administration’s blunders and shift the blame to political appointees named during Chen’s presidency.”
Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭), former secretary-general of the Presidential Office, said there was no reason to demand that DPP appointees resign if they serve in independent bodies.
As for those at state-owned firms, Yeh said the public should respect the choice of individual appointees because they were appointed to the position based on their expertise and not political connections.
Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) also urged the KMT to respect the constitutional system and the rule of law yesterday.
Lu said different political parties can govern the country, but the government must continue to function. When the DPP came to power in 2000, it let appointees at independent agencies stay on until their terms expired, she said.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said that if the DPP decides that all its appointees should resign, she would support this.
She said there was no need for them to suffer humiliation.
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