Lee Yuan-tseh urges Chen to consider quitting

Legislator Tsai Huang-lang, deputy secretary general of the DPP, said he was stunned by Lee’s open letter issued last night.

Lee, a co-winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry, is currently in Paris to attend a conference hosted by the Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization.

He said Taiwan now faces one of the most serious challenges in her democratic history, resulting from the indictment of first lady Wu Shu-chen and President Chen Shui-bian’s alleged misuse of public funds.

Noting that the indictment was the fruit of Taiwan’s democratization movement, Lee said the indictment, as a result, demonstrated the unprecedented independence of Taiwan justice.

Lee, who is widely believed to have played a decisive role in helping Chen win the presidency in 2000, said the power rotation in 2000 symbolized Taiwan people’s hope to pursue a higher caliber of democracy in their lives and that their votes for Chen’s DPP displayed their dissatisfaction for a corrupt 50-year-long ruling Kuomintang regime.

Therefore, he went on, last Friday’s indictment of the first lady represents a vital challenge for the long-term reform and establishment of Taiwan’s democratic core values.

“The indictment has led the government, the ruling party, and the people to a turning point. It is my opinion that if President Chen wants to act on the will of the people, which is to safeguard Taiwan’s democracy, he must carefully consider whether he should tender his resignation,” Lee wrote.

“The DPP must choose to prioritize between their party and the entire country. The president and the party must evaluate whether they should persist to strive to achieve the value of democracy in which Taiwan people would always pursue,” he added.

Aside from facing mounting pressure for his resignation due to the scams surrounding his family and senior aides, President Chen has also come under growing pressure from DPP members who said that Chen should step down for the sake of the party or at least face party disciplinary action.

But the voice of dissidents within the DPP has so far been silenced by top party leaders.

Please see full text of Lee Yuan-tseh’s open letter on page 15.

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