Ma Ying-jeou’s political crisis

Every top public office holder is entitled to that expense account. Only half of the monthly allocated special allowance needs documented justification. The other half can be used at his or her own discretion without receipts or bills to prove how it is spent. The general practice of over 6,400 such officials is to obtain the half needing no justification in cash or remit it to their personal bank accounts. Ma opted for the latter, while one of his assistants in charge of his petty cash account made clerical mistakes. Yu Wen, the assistant, replaced many petty cash receipts with a few large bills to write off some NT$800,000 from Ma’s expense account over three and a half years, ending last June 30.

What Yu did, though he claimed he didn’t pocket the money and did so just to lighten his workload, may constitute forgery. Taipei district prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen has subpoenaed the assistant for questioning as a defendant. Ma was also questioned by the public prosecutor last week, but no charges have been pressed.

The whole episode, which may not even be a tempest in a teapot, gave ruling Democratic Progressive Party leaders, who are eager to protect the beleaguered President Chen, a golden opportunity to attack a red faced Ma Ying-jeou, demanding that he step down as mayor as well as Kuomintang chairman. First lady Wu Shu-chen was indicted on November 3 for corruption in connection with the misuse of a special public fund under her husband’s control for the conduct of “affairs of state.” Prosecutor Chen Jui-jen charged her with borrowing receipts and bills from friends and relatives to claim a NT$14.8 million reimbursement from the state affairs fund. The prosecutor did not indict President Chen, who is immune to prosecution, but regarded him as an unindicted co-defendant who would be officially charged upon leaving office.

Ma the perfectionist has refused to resign, because he believes he is innocent but he has admitted to oversight of clerical errors, for which he apologized, saying he is ashamed of himself. To accentuate his innocence, he donated to charity all the special expenses that require no justification for the past eight years. He has also promised to resign as mayor and party chairman, if he were indicted.

As a matter of fact, Ma didn’t have to do so. President Chen did nothing of the kind, though he is an unindicted co-defendant charged with corruption, not with oversight of clerical mistakes. Ma steered the rigid self-disciplined course to keep his perfectionist clean image, which he can never allow to be tainted in any way. He considers his being questioned on his probity to be his worst political crisis.

It isn’t, although it would damage his chance to run successfully for president in 2008. At worst, only his assistant, who was already transferred, may be indicted for forgery. Ma certainly won’t be charged with corruption, because he is not corrupt. In the meantime, however, an exchange of charges between the Kuomintang and the ruling party will continue unabated. The DPP is retaliating to avenge the president, while the former is suing all five top DPP leaders from Vice President Annette Lu on down for similarly misusing their special expenses. It may escalate into a government crisis.

We hope Prosecutor Hou will complete his investigation of the case as soon as practicable to help prevent that. Ma is scheduled to retire as mayor in a month, and Hou shouldn’t take four months, as Prosecutor Chen Jui-jen did, to decide whether to indict him for or absolve him of corruption.

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