Mon, Sep 16, 2013 page1

• Former vice president Lu calls on Ma to step down

  NOT UP TO SCRATCH: Annette Lu said Ma has failed to live up to the vows he recited during his inaugurations as president and has fallen short of the public’s expectations

  • By Chen Ching-min and Stacy Hsu / Staff Reporter, with Staff Writer
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  Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday issued an online statement urging President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to step down and take responsibility for his poor governance and autocratic actions regarding the revocation of Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng’s (王金平) Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) membership.

  She called on members of the public to show their concern about the country’s future by joining a “civic alliance to recall Ma.”

  During his five years serving as head of state and commander-in-chief, Ma has not lived up to the presidential vows he recited during his inauguration, Lu said in a statement posted on her Facebook page yesterday.

  He has fallen far short of the public’s expectations, which is why he should be subjected to severe punishment, Lu said.

  “Ma’s failure to live up to his presidential vows is the cause of his plummeting approval rating. The latest poll [conducted by TVBS] shows that his approval rating has dropped to only 11 percent, compared to a disapproval rating of 68 percent. Another survey [by the Taiwan Indicators Survey Research] also shows that as much as 70 percent of Taiwanese have no faith in the president’s future performance,” Lu said.

  An incompetent leader like Ma, whose poor governance, China-leaning stance and damage to the nation’s constitutional mechanism have driven the people to despair, should voluntarily step down, Lu said.

  Lu also urged lawmakers across party lines to immediately launch a recall motion against Ma to alleviate the public’s concerns, safeguard Taiwan’s constitutional system and protect the country’s sovereignty and security.

  Lu said the president’s perceived manipulation of the Special Investigation Division (SID) and the KMT’s Central Evaluation and Discipline Committee to take down Wang underlined Ma’s autocratic governing style and constituted a severe violation of the doctrine of the separation of powers.

  Since Ma took office in 2008, his dereliction of duty had undermined the nation’s sovereignty, damaged its dignity, brought about economic recession and pushed the country to the verge of bankruptcy, Lu said.

  “Instead of safeguarding national security as the nation’s commander-in-chief is supposed to, Ma has sat idly by while the military is plagued by irregularities and has promoted an all-volunteer military system that could cripple our national defense,” Lu said.

  “More alarmingly, as a result of Ma’s pandering to China, our soldiers have no idea who they are fighting for, causing unease in the nation,” Lu said.

  Lu’s statement came on the heels of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) announcement of its plan to initiate an impeachment of Ma in the legislature, a move aimed at holding the president accountable for what the party described as jeopardizing the nation’s constitutional order and political stability by carrying out political persecution against Wang.

  Wang, a long-time KMT member, saw his membership revoked by the party’s discipline committee last week, after the SID used information obtained during an alleged illegal wiretap operation to back its accusations that Wang had illegally lobbied for a lawsuit involving DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘).

  The scandal has ignited a public outcry aimed at Ma, whom many believe was the mastermind behind what appeared to be a carefully orchestrated political vendetta against Wang.
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