TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Premier Wu Den-yih called on the Kuomintang to return to political issues Friday, while the Democratic Progressive Party condemned the government for abusing the judiciary in its campaign against presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen.
On the day he officially took leave to devote himself fulltime to his bid as vice-presidential candidate in the January 14 election, Wu said that his poll performance had only improved by 2 percent after the Yu Chang case came to the fore, but that half the public believed the allegations against Tsai and half did not.
The KMT has alleged that Tsai approved government investment in Yu Chang Biologics Co. when she was vice premier in early 2007 with the full knowledge that she would leave the Cabinet and chair the company later in the year. Tsai has denied the allegations, saying she did not manage the government investment and was only invited to chair Yu Chang by prominent scientists after she left the Cabinet.
Wu said Friday that the topic should not take center stage in the election campaign, but that the KMT should return to defending the government’s performance in office.
The DPP accused the ruling party of using a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, top party leaders like Wu called for a truce, but KMT lawmakers kept holding news conferences to launch accusations against Tsai, the opposition party said. KMTlegislators said they would continue to demand explanations from Tsai as long as their leadership didn’t order them to stop.
The ruling party was damaging the independence and impartiality of the judiciary and accusing Taiwan’s top biotechnology experts of being opposition supporters, DPP legislator Tsai Huang-liang said.
On Thursday, the DPP presented the recording of one of the founders of Yu Chang, scientist Chen Lan-bo, saying Tsai at first had never been considered as a candidate for company chairman.
He said Taiwanese people should be angry about the allegations and stand up to protest. The accusations against Tsai were completely unfair, he said.
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