Former DPP chairman Shih urges Chen to step down over scandals

Shih Ming-teh, who has left a party which he led in the 1990s, has explained both in a private letter to Chen and in public why the president must step down.

“The head of state has the responsibility to solve problems (for the country), and when he becomes the source of the trouble, he has to ponder whether it’s time to go,” Shih said at a press conference yesterday.

He said he pointed out in his letter sent to Chen Tuesday that the president cannot rely only on his party and supporters to come to his rescue, because if such defense were effective, the trouble would have been over long ago.

Shih stressed he would not want to see “revolutionary measures,” but if the impasse continued, he would not believe that Chen and his administration could stay on in peace.

“Because the people have lost their trust and faith, the country won’t be freed from the crisis. This is what motivated me to write the letter,” Shih told the press.

Shih claimed in his letter that Chen “blatantly embraced” business circles by forming an advisory group comprised of major businessmen and academics shortly after he was first elected president in 2000.

Shih said it was “the first step toward his (Chen’s) downfall.”

“If you yourself are so close to the businessmen, how can you expect your right-hand men, your family and your in-laws to keep a distance from them?” Shih asked in the letter.

Shih is a highly respected political figure who is dubbed Taiwan’s Nelson Mandela for spending years in jail for fighting the Kuomintang’s (KMT) authoritarian rule.

He quit the DPP a few years ago after falling out with Chen.

His letter to the president was published in the Chinese-language China Times newspaper yesterday, adding fuel to a campaign by other prominent pro-DPP figures seeking Chen’s ouster.

Last month, a few hundred pro-DPP scholars and activists sent a petition to Chen, asking him to step down.

But Chen has been resisting calls for his resignation, vigorously defending his own integrity — though not that of his son-in-law Chao Chien-ming, who has been indicted on a count of insider trading.

Presidential Secretary General Tan Sun Chen, in response to Shih’s call, said the president hopes to arrange a meeting with the former DPP chief, as they are good friends and have not seen each other for quite a while.

The aide dismissed rumors that the president had rejected an earlier proposal by Shih for a meeting.

He said the president highly respects Shih and takes his opinions seriously.

Legislator Yeh Yi-jin, a whip of the DPP caucus, claimed the nation would not want to see Chen quit the presidency when no evidence is available to prove that the head of state has committed any crime.

She said Shih might have been out of the DPP for too long to understand what’s really going on inside the party.

Yeh argued that it would be easy for Chen to step down, but as the national leader he has the responsibility to lead the country through the crisis.

DPP spokesman Tsai Huang-liang said he appreciated Shih’s concern for the DPP, saying that the party must “reform boldly and resolutely” to regain the people’s trust.

But the opposition, which has been defeated in an attempt to recall Chen, urged the president to heed Shih’s call, although KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou said he feels the president “will cling onto his post.”

Lu Hsueh-chang, a whip of the People First Party, also predicted that Chen will turn a deaf ear to Shih’s advice and to an earlier call by the group of pro-DPP academics for him to quit.

Lu said that judicial authorities must get tough in their probe into the corruption cases that the president and his family were allegedly involved.

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