The end of the Hualien County Commissioner by-election not only left the DPP with a defeat, but also put the party's high ranking officials at loggerheads with Hualien's local law executors.
The DPP Deputy Secretary General Lee Chin-yung (
The charges were brought against Lee just a few days before the by-election poll on Aug. 2 amid public accusations that the promise was an attempt to bribe Aboriginal voters.
The prosecutors' office then summoned Lee to testify about the case, however, the demand was flatly rejected by Lee who denounced the actions as politically biased.
"I can't agree with certain prosecutor's attitudes and intentions in dealing with this case. I think it is unnecessary for me to go on with this show plotted by them," Lee told the press. He insisted he wouldn't comply with the court's summon last Wednesday.
The prosecutor in question was Hualien's Chief Prosecutor Yang Ta-chih (楊大智) who had spoken out against Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) and Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲) over the government's round-the-clock checkpoint measures to prevent vote-buying in Hualien.
Yang's open challenge to the judicial authorities was believed to sway the election results as the government's anti-corruption measures were said to repulse local Hualien residents who then voted against the DPP to show their anger.
On Aug. 6, Lee was absent from an investigation hearing held by prosecutors and instead took a day off and went snorkeling.
The absence was deemed as a show of contempt to the court and widely criticized by opposition parties.
To quash doubts he may have set a bad example for society, Lee made a personal visit to the prosecutors in Hualien last Friday to answer the charges.
Lee's change of stance was set in motion by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and DPP Secretary General Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) who urged Lee to show due respect for the judicial system.
The party's advice was also intended to reduce further negative effects on the party's sagging morale after its by-election fiasco in Hualien at a time when the party urgently needs to pull itself together before the challenge of next year's presidential poll.
Though complying with party orders to testify before Hualien's prosecutors, Lee did not change his hard-line condemnation of what he called politically-motivated prosecutors.
On Aug. 7, Lee filed a complaint with the Control Yuan accusing Yang of siding with partisan interests in handling the judicial proceedings.
"Yang has violated the principle of withholding investigation information before a lawsuit is established when he leaked information to the media about an alleged vote-buying practice by DPP supporters," Lee said.
Lee earned an L.M. from the Law School of National Taiwan University and was a practice lawyer and a former judge in the Hualien District Court between 1979 and 1980. He was also the Keelung City mayor between 1997 and 2001.
Of the interrogation, Lee said, "My faith and my belief haven't changed at all during the process. Treating a candidate's campaign promise as election bribery is the most absurd thing ever, and it's preposterous for the prosecutors to list me, an irrelevant party staff member, as a defendant and summon me for interrogation."
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