Frank Hsieh drops the ball again

In 'Black gold' haunts Kaohsiung again, Jewel Huang writes on the Kaohsiung election:

The by-election on Saturday is being held to replace the 18 former councilors who lost their seats for accepting bribes in last December's council speaker election, which is the in Taiwan's election history for a municipal government.

Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄), who won the speaker seat through bribery, was sentenced to 22 months in jail. Chu now tops the nation's 10 most wanted list of fugitives, as he fled the country after being released on NT$5 million in bail prior to reporting to jail to serve his sentence.

The Southern Taiwan Society yesterday said that the local vote captains were still trying to buy votes because the punishment for bribery is so minor that no one is intimidated.

In a press release, the society asked the Ministry of Justice to revise the law and strengthen the punishment for bribery to uproot the inveterate vote-buying culture.

In the by-election, 47 candidates will contend for the 18 city councilor seats. However, 11 of the candidates are family members of the city councilors who were ousted, mostly the wives or daughters of dismissed councilors.

For example, Chu's daughter, Chu Ting-shan (朱挺珊), will run as an independent candidate. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has also nominated three candidates from the families of disgraced councilors.

As the DPP's campaign mastermind, Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) held a low-key attitude about DPP's nomination, saying an exclusive interview with the Taipei Times that democracy was decided by the people, and that he believed in the wisdom of the people.

Earlier, Lee Chuan-chia (李全教) laid out the case against Su Hui-chen (蘇惠珍).

Su turned to DPP officials for help in a bid to salvage her Zanadau venture, a multi-billion-dollar plan to build a giant shopping mall in Kaohsiung County, according to Lee.

"At least eight DPP heavyweights took bribes of between NT$10 million and NT$30 million from Su after she sought in vain to obtain loans through the China Development Industrial Bank," he said.

Lee singled out [Senior Adviser to the President Yu Chen Yueh-ying (余陳月瑛)] for criticism, saying the former Kaohsiung County commissioner, who briefly served as Zanadau president, exploited her post to boost her own wealth.

The lawmaker also urged investigators to probe Yu Chen's son, Interior Minister Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲), who, Lee noted, quickly approved licenses for the Zanadau project after succeeding his mother as Kaohsiung County commissioner.

"Investigators cannot solve the puzzle if they pass over the Yu clan, which played a key role in the rise and fall of the venture," he said.

And

Hsieh's reputation has been tarnished because he failed to provide clear explanations about the role he played in the speakership election," the official said.

The scandal erupted after the election of the council speaker on Dec. 25, when prosecutors found evidence that almost 30 councilors on the 44-member council had sold their votes at NT$5 million each to the controversial and already scandal-tainted Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄).

Although Hsieh never stated a preference for any particular candidate before the election, reports have said that he tacitly endorsed Chu. It is difficult for Hsieh to avoid the fallout from the controversy because his aide, Wang Wen-cheng (王文正), the director of Kaohsiung's Civil Affairs Bureau, has admitted that he lobbied for Chu.

Wang was detained last week on suspicion of approaching city councilors on Chu's behalf and later delivering bribe payments.

Also at issue is the NT$2.8 million Hsieh received from Hsu Wen-liang (許文良), the chief of the Yu Huang Temple. Whereas Hsieh claimed the money was a political donation during the mayoral campaign, prosecutors suspect the money was a payment for Hsieh's approval of an illegally constructed part of the temple.

Hsieh has developed a reputation for being articulate but evasive in the face of disputes.

Before the election, Hsieh offered ambiguous explanations in response to accusations from opposition lawmakers that he had received a NT$4.5 million check from Zanadau majority shareholder Su Hui-chen (蘇惠珍) in 1994 as part of an influence-peddling scheme.

Regarding the vote-buying scam and the payment from the temple, Hsieh has been vague about whether he knew Wang was helping Chu and about why he accepted the payment from Hsu.

The thing is, Frank Hsieh is being mooted as Chen Shuibian's successor. He'd be a disaster!