The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday dismissed former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) description of the Yu Chang Biologics Co case as a smear campaign and said the KMT respected the prosecutors’ findings.
“The KMT respects the judicial mechanism, but as a politician, Tsai should still offer an explanation of the case to the public. It is irresponsible to avoid public scrutiny by calling it a smear campaign or political manipulation,” KMT spokesperson Ma Wei-kuo (馬瑋國) said.
She also shrugged off the DPP’s call for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to apologize for abusing government resources and engaging in a smear campaign against Tsai during the presidential campaign.
“The KMT never referred to the Yu Chang case as an example of corruption. We were simply expressing concern about Tsai’s role in the investment case. To this day, there are a lot of questions about the case and we hope Tsai addresses public concerns and give a more detailed explanation,” she said.
During the presidential campaign, Tsai and the DPP accused Ma Ying-jeou of taking bribes from gangster Chen Yi-chu (陳盈助) and the president clarified the matter immediately, Ma Wei-kuo said. Tsai, on the other hand, spent most of time in her press conference yesterday criticizing Ma Ying-jeou and refusing to take questions from the press, the spokesperson said, urging Tsai to discuss her role in the case even though the investigation is over.
Ma Ying-jeou’s campaign had questioned Tsai’s role in the government’s funding for Yu Chang during the presidential campaign, amid allegations she had profited from the biologics firm. The then Council for Economic Planning and Development minister, Christina Liu (劉憶如), accused Tsai of wrongdoing while she was vice premier in 2007 in connection with the firm’s start-up.
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