"This police precinct does not allow candidates engaged in election campaigns to enter the building," reads a sign hung on the front door of a police station in Taipei's Shihlin district.
"This poster is put on the front door every election" said the duty officer, who like other police officers interviewed, requested not to be identified by name.
As a result of a politically-charged New Year's visit to a station house in the neighboring district of Peitou at a time when the presidential race has reached new levels of intensity, posters like these across the city are attracting more attention than ever before.
Whether the message on the poster will be followed, however, is an issue which city officials, pundits and political players are still debating.
The Peitou Case
The "political neutrality" of the city's administration has been a hotly debated topic since Peitou police chief Wu Chen-chi (
Last Thursday, the KMT-led city government gave Wu two demerits for the incident, saying he had opened his office to partisan influences.
Although Wu defended Chen's stopover as "a private visit," city officials disagreed.
Wang Chin-wang (王進旺), head of the municipal police department, said Wu had issued official documents to his subordinates prior to Chen's visit ordering off duty officers to be in uniform and awaiting orders.
"Personal friendships must not be allowed to damage the system. [Public servants] should be scrupulous in separating public from private interests," city government spokesperson King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) said of the incident.
Mutual attacks
Chen's camp made an immediate counterattack, saying KMT mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
"Ma's decision [to punish Wu] really made a mountain out of a molehill," said DPP vice presidential candidate Annette Lu (呂秀蓮).
But King said the punishment simply followed rules regarding administrative neutrality which Chen himself set up in 1995 when, as mayor of Taipei, he led the city government.
"As a political figure running for the post of a national leader, Chen should articulate clearly why he was unable to follow the rules he himself established in a situation related to his personal interests," King said.
King also criticized Chen for his "double standards" on administrative neutrality.
Citing a similar episode in 1996, King said former Ta-an precinct chief Feng Tung-sen (
Chen punished Feng by giving him two demerits.
Ma was following Chen's precedent in punishing Wu, King said.
In response to these allegations, Chen's camp also used the term "double standards" to criticize Ma's partisan interests.
Lu said that Vice President Lien Chan (連戰), who is the KMT's presidential candidate made similar visits during the Chinese New Year holiday, but that these had not raised any eyebrows at city hall.
Unless Lien is forbidden to enter police stations as well, Ma's decision to punish Wu didn't make sense to her, Lu said.
The city government denied that Lien had been given special treatment because he belonged to the same party as the mayor.
"Lien's visits [to police stations during the Chinese New Year] were in his capacity as vice president," King said.
"And Ma had spoken to him [Lien] in advance, requesting that no overt political gestures be made," the spokesman said.
Keeping the government administration free of partisan politics is a difficult task, King said. The city government is trying to clarify "the gray areas" in the policy, he said.
Divergent Views
People outside of government had mixed views on Wu's case.
Guan Bi-ling (管碧玲), a public administration professor at Taipei University, said Wu was "overly polite" to Chen by summoning his subordinates to welcome Chen.
"Driven by his private relationship with Chen, Wu simply ignored his position as a police officer," Guan said.
But Guan said she didn't think Wu intentionally used official resources to help Chen in his election campaign activity.
The city government's punishment was justifiable only if "Wu himself admitted that he intended to campaign for Chen," she said.
Guan, who served as an aide to Chen during the 1998 mayoral election, said it was "odd" for Ma to question the administrative neutrality of his subordinates as a similar violation had occurred during Ma's own mayoral campaign.
Guan said she had evidence to show that the Cabinet-level Central Personnel Administration (人事行政局) had once issued official documents to several Cabinet-level agencies to request civil servants participate in one of Ma's election campaign activities.
"Isn't that a case of administrative neutrality being violated for the sake of an election?" she said.
Citing city government rules on administrative neutrality, Hsu Ping-song (許濱松), a professor of public administration at National Chengchi University, said Ma's move to punish Wu was justified.
Hsu went further to say that it was not problematic for Ma, as the mayor, to accompany Lien, as the vice president, on inspections of municipal agencies, with the proviso that there "was no talk about elections during the whole process."
"If gestures related to the election were made, then the DPP's criticism of Ma for using double standards on administrative neutrality would make sense," he said.
Neutrality just a myth?
Though holding different views on the Wu case, public administration experts and municipal police officers agree on one thing: that trying to maintain neutrality is wishful thinking when regulations don't exist and the concept is not widely understood.
"How can it be possible to achieve administrative neutrality?" asked a vice chief of a police precinct.
"It's simply a direction politicians map out, but it's impossible to achieve the goal," he added.
Guan was more direct.
"It's a luxury to talk about administrative neutrality at the present stage in Taiwan. The KMT and the opposition violate administrative neutrality so severely because Taiwan still lacks a democratic culture," she said.
"It takes time for a democratic culture to take hold," she added.
At the root of the problem is a lack of laws defining and enforcing administrative neutrality, said Hsu.
"The ideal remedy is to make laws which clearly outline what administrative neutrality is," Hsu said.
Hsu said Taiwan should set up laws like the US' Hatch Act, first enacted in 1939, that stipulates the do's and don'ts of political activity by employees of central, state and local government agencies.
"Otherwise each time there is an election, the same controversy over administrative neutrality will emerge, causing confusion and chaos as everybody has his or her view of what it [administrative neutrality] is," he added.
Draft legislation on the issue passed a first reading in the Legislative Yuan last September but has yet to become law.
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