Chen Shui-bian Lines His Own Pockets with Public Funds, While Tsai Ing-wen Inundates the Gov’t with Partisan Factions

 Chen Shui-bian Lines His Own Pockets with Public Funds, While Tsai Ing-wen Inundates the Gov’t with Partisan Factions

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

May 30, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

Following the battles between the ruling and opposition parties in Parliament, Lee Chin-yung, the immediate-past Yunlin County executive, of DPP affiliation, who was defeated in last yearend’s elections, was confirmed as Chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) by a vote of 65 to 2. In formality, this personnel appointment has completed the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle for President Tsai’s "Cabinet of electoral losers." In substance, it, however, planted the seed for "political party manipulations" in next year’s presidential election. Chang Sue-chung, a CEC member, quickly tendered her letter of resignation, expressing dissatisfaction. The opposition parties, on the other hand, lambasted this as "the most shameless personnel appointment case in history"; the independent nature of the CEC is virtually completely destroyed.

Since Tsai Ing-wen came to office, she has endlessly broken the framework of government appointments, and through amending laws, changing the restrictions and ratios of political appointees and senior political appointees in the Executive branch, attempting to bypass the normal government system to employ more Green camp figures in the Cabinet. At that time, relying on the reformer’s halo of a first time chief executive, she was able to frequently get her way, deploying extensively her cronies in Cabinet ministries. However, following expanded disputes in governance, the public have found that many of her doings were not to promote the progress of the nation, but to facilitate the DPP’s political control and even the dolling out of powerful positions Until now, many ministries have been severely distorted and off-key; many government offices have been relegated to the DPP’s "private institutions."

The eight years of Chen Shui-bian ended with cases of graft and corruption; he lined his own pockets with dirty money from different sources. Nevertheless, Chen Shui-bian’s era did not so thoroughly forget democracy; he also at least appointed such Blue camp officials as Tang Fei [as Premier.] The past three years of Tsai Ing-wen, nevertheless, saw evil of a different form; although graft and corruption have not emerged, she nevertheless used various means to inject partisan forces into the government, allowing the neutral, objective, professional, and selfless spirit to disappear from the public sector. It is indeed dirty to line one’s pockets with public money, but isn’t it odious to inundate the government with party factions?

Attachment : none