President Chen Shui-bian's (
"President Chen is sincere in launching a series of party reforms; however, he is very displeased that his goodwill has been interpreted as an intention to expand personal authority," said an aide close to Chen.
"We must admit that those misunderstandings were made possible by two mistakes. One was that we, the president's staff, failed to precisely convey the president's idea, and second, that some party leaders tried to flatter the president," said the aide.
"The president therefore complained bitterly that the guy who lost in the (presidential) election still refuses to step down (from the chairmanship), while the person who won the election displays sincere intent to leave the post but then has been criticized for enlarging his personal power," the aide said.
National Security Council Secretary General Chiou I-jen (
"The president had told me in April that he had considered relinquishing his position as chairman, and he assigned me to negotiate with party leaders and draw up a proposal for July's National Party Congress," Chiou said.
"However, since I was designated to serve as secretary general of the National Security Council on May 20, I was busy in my new job and completely forgot the assignment," he said.
Chiou said that on June 18, one month before the congress and also the deadline for proposing any amendments for inclusion on the congress agenda, Chen asked whether the draft amendment regarding the chairmanship was accomplished, and "we found that no one had taken on the duty.
"So I immediately coordinated with the president's staff and DPP legislative caucus leaders to proceed with the amendment," Chiou said, "and the president's instructions were clear -- he must step down from the chairmanship and return to the role of an unbiased and nonpartisan head of state in order to facilitate upcoming reform projects," said Chiou.
"He did not ask to create any mechanism to allow him to directly appoint a new chairman," Chiou said.
According to president's aide, Chiou's original idea was to amend the party charter to allow all members of the Central Executive Committee to elect from one to three vice-chairmen to succeed Chen.
"Then a senior party leader immediately contacted two DPP legislators, the legislative caucus whip, Ker Chien-ming (
"Hung's proposal advocated the same idea as Chiou, but Ker's proposal directly suggested that the new chairman should be appointed by the president," the aide said.
The aide said that some senior party leaders adopted Ker's stance and that this regrettably misled the media and public to believe that, in the aide's words, "Chen wants to get rid of the party affairs but still tried to control the party machine as a puppet."
Though Chen's staff pointed fingers at middlemen for fawning on the president, more party members expressed their anger with the Presidential Office for failing to precisely express Chen's thinking.
Hung, however, told the media that the urgent issue is to draw up a complete version of party reforms, especially to clearly regulate the rights and obligations of the new chairman.
"Whether I am taking the blame for others is not important; the DPP is not afraid of being criticized and debate always facilitates the party's progress," Hung said. "The question is that how soon we can let the public understand our new vision."
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