The Presidential Recall That Almost Was

In my last post,  I admitted to initially wavering on the question of whether Taiwan’s President Chen was innocent of corruption following the indictment of his wife on November 3rd.  In this however, I was not alone.  A timeline of the four most pivotal days of the latest presidential recall saga:

Friday, Nov 3/06:  First Lady Wu Shu-jen is indicted on corruption charges.  Chen Shui-bian is unindicted only due to presidential immunity, but the prospect is raised of his indictment once he leaves office.

The evidence of corruption consists of falsified receipts for the presidential State Affairs Fund.  Some were submitted by an individual who was not in country at the time, and others were for personal jewelry purchased by Mrs. Wu.

Chen’s party, the independence-minded DPP, tries to distance itself from him by beginning talk of referring the First Lady to their internal ethics committee.  Meanwhile, the KMT and its pro-unification ally, the PFP, announce they will again attempt to have President Chen recalled.  What separates this attempt from previous ones is that the TSU, a party allied with the DPP, has now announced it will support the recall.  If a mere 12 DPP members defect and vote for recall, the measure will pass in the legislature and a public referendum will be called.  A simple majority in this referendum will be enough to remove Chen from his post.

Saturday, Nov 4/06:  The DPP circles the wagons, and collectively agrees not to answer media questions until Chen gives a speech on the subject on Sunday.

Sunday, Nov 5/06:  The tide turns against the president, as three members of his own party break media silence, and to varying degrees declare their lack of support for him.  Good news comes later for him though, as some TSU members announce they are unhappy with the party’s support for a recall vote.

Also during the day, the prosecutor discusses some of the bogus receipts, while the president gives a speech in his own defense.  The speech does not address the receipts specifically, but does raise the issue of motive.  Chen claims that if he had wanted to swindle the government out of NT$14 million ($400,000), he wouldn’t have abolished a secret NT$110 million ($3 million) account and reduced his salary by NT$3 million ($1 million) over six years.  He insists he will only resign if his wife is found guilty in a court of law.

Monday, Nov 6/06:  Following Chen’s Sunday speech, the TSU reverses its support for another recall.  Given the unlikelihood of 24 DPP members breaking ranks, a recall is now doomed to failure.  Yet despite the odds, the KMT vows to press onward with the vote.

Since this is the third recall attempt, it’s fair to wonder how many more times the KMT can try to get rid of him before they start to look ridiculous.  But for a while there last weekend, with Chen’s support crumbling, I could have sworn he was a goner.

UPDATE (Nov 14/06):  Both the Taipei Times and the China Post are portraying a recent call by Dr. Lee Yuan-tseh for President Chen to step down as a major development.  I’m aware that the Taiwanese Nobel Prize winner and former president of Taiwan’s premier research academy has moral authority here, but I’m a bit sceptical that his withdrawal of support will mean all that much.  Do people really look to experts on chemical kinetics for political advice?  Taiwan’s governed by democratic institutions, not the Science Council of Krypton.

The reactions to the announcement are interesting in themselves.  The KMT now hails Lee as a statesman, a profile in courage, when it was only a few weeks ago that they lambasted him to his face in the legislature for his endorsement of Chen Shui-bian in the 2000 presidential race.  The DPP on the other hand, now denounces him as being "biased and unfair", though that didn’t stop them from taking his endorsement back in 2000.

For my own part, I think Dr. Lee is wrong.  But I also think he has a right to be wrong.