DPP withholds Chen’s donation info

Cheng said that based on the DPP rules, DPP candidates are required to give NT$10 out of the NT$30 subsidy they obtain for each vote in the elections to the party. But ex-president Chen gave all the subsidies for the votes he won during the said two presidential elections.

In the 2000 presidential election, Chen won 4.9 million votes and obtained NT$147 million in total subsidy for the votes. He won 6.47 million votes in the 2004 race and got subsidies of NT$194 million. Both figures added up to NT$341 million, identical to the amount of donations made by Chen to the DPP, according to Cheng.

As the source of the around NT$340 million donated by Chen to the DPP was made clear, there is no need for the DPP to publicize any further details concerning Chen’s donations to the DPP, Cheng said.

Ex-president Chen recently claimed that he donated around NT$340 million to the DPP over the past few years. Chen’s claims came as a response to criticisms that he remitted election campaign surplus funds abroad regardless of the poor finance of the DPP.

Cheng’s remarks came despite the fact that just two days earlier, Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP said at a fund-raising party in the Taipei County that the financial department of the party will release details of Chen’s donations to the party.

Lawmaker Ker Chien-ming, director of the finance committee of the DPP, said that Chairwoman Tsai didn’t talk to him about Chen’s cash donations to the DPP.

Ker said when serving as chairman of the DPP, Chen had done a good job in solving the financial problems of the party, in that sometimes Chen had to personally give financial aid to party candidates for elections including elections for county and city chiefs, legislative elections, and public referenda on key issues, among others.

Cheng also noted that the former president did assume great responsibility for tackling the party’s financial predicaments over the past eight years, and therefore it’s no wonder that he had donated all the subsidies he won for the presidential votes to the party.

Insiders said it seems that the central administration of the DPP doesn’t want to offend Chen as it has chosen not to publicize the details concerning Chen’s cash donations to the party.

But on another front, the DPP also doesn’t want to endorse the flow of a huge amount of money held by the former first money.

Insiders continued that now the key point lies not in how much money Chen had donated to the DPP, but in why Chen has so much much to remit abroad.

Some 10 days ago, Chen acknowledged that his wife Wu Su-jen remitted some US$21 million abroad in recent years.

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