Is the Kuomintang reformed?

Altogether 32 members were elected to the disbanded committee. A number of them were disqualified on charges of buying votes by wining and dining or sending gifts to their electorate. They were ousted by Chairman Ma, the Mister Clean. Then the rest of the bunch were persuaded or forced to resign to pave the way for the re-election of the committee, which is the KMT version of the politburo of the Chinese Communist Party. Ma hates, and has vowed to fight corruption in any guise.

Well, the new committee was duly elected last Saturday. Twenty of the original 32 members were re-elected. There were 10 new faces, but none except one of the m were Cabinet ministers who are technocrats rather than politicians and whom Ma hoped would be elected to the new committee. Only two ministers ran for re-election. One of them, Chairman Chen Wu-hsiung of the Council of Agriculture, won a seat. The other, Chairwoman Wang Yi-ting of the National Youth Commission, was not elected.

Though there was little vote-buying exposed, Saturday's election was plagued by well-manipulated exchange of votes among different blocs of KMT politicians. Though it's not vote-buying outright, it was corruption of sorts, but Chan Chun-po, KMT secretary-general, praised the re-election “a perfect one.” Was it?

The new lineup has failed to convince the public that Ma, who has to accept the 20 old familiar faces on the central standing committee, is carrying on his promised party reform in earnest. Of course, Ma couldn't afford to dismiss the committee and order another re-election. He has to accept the political reality.

On the other hand, Ma has to worry about the scandal of one of his lieutenants in the Legislative Yuan. Wu Yu-sheng, a two-term lawmaker, had an extramarital affair with an alleged gold digger. He had to offer a public apology after his irate wife went back to her parents' home. Then Wu was accused of using a BMW leased by a very rich supporter in his tryst with the aging party girl. Wu declared he leased the car himself, but suspicion remains that he might have misappropriated political contributions he had received. It, again, may be corruption in a disguise, according to the Ma standards.

Wu who sat on the old central standing committee did not run for Saturday's election, but he may have to resign to help Ma keep his clean image.

Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email