The Ma Ying-jeou Shuffle Continues
Thursday November 16, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.
A Glance Backwards
When I wrote about Ma Ying-jeou in my entry of February 17, 2006, (The Ma Ying-jeou Shuffle, How Long Can He Keep it Up?) I quoted these words of Abraham Lincoln, You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. At that time, Ma was on his European tour and trying to dance around the direct challenge of whether his first priority was the preservation of Taiwan's democracy or unification with China. Now as new scandals of corruption erupt for him, Ma, the current Mayor of Taipei and the Chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is still dancing. However, that number of some people that he has fooled all of the time appears to be growing smaller and smaller.
In the past months, Ma had been trying to lead the charge against Chen Shui-bian; he has demanded that Chen step down. First it was not because of anything that Chen had done, but because his son-in-law had been indicted (not convicted) on insider trading; then Chen's wife was embroiled in the great Sogo coupon brouhaha. Well the Sogo coupon episode went belly up as far as any concrete evidence was concerned but that did not stop the KMT. They came back with a new ploy. Chen's wife was indicted on the charge of misuse of and/or forging receipts for the "state affairs fund." Unfortunately however, all this exploded when Ma's office was found guilty of the same practice of misuse of and/or forging receipts for the "mayoral expense fund."
Enter the doublespeak.
Ma is now dancing faster and faster; and though he is not going anywhere except possibly offstage, that certainly is not stopping him. Note the wording that he uses to excuse himself. When Chen was accused of misuse of the receipt procedure it was corruption; when Ma is guilty of it, it is only a blemish.
When Chen's office mishandled the procedures and receipts it was out and out corruption; when Ma's office did the same, it was an administrative defect.
When Chen's wife and accountants were involved, Chen was responsible and should resign. When Ma's wife and accountants were involved, Ma stated he knew nothing about it. He would not resign.
Yu Wen is the Taipei City staffer who has become the fall guy for Ma. Since the issue is falsification of receipts by the Mayor's office, in a half-hearted way to deflect the blame, Ma is saying that there is no evidence that Yu pocketed the money. Of course not, how could Yu pocket the monies involved, they went directly into Ma's account. The issue is not whether Yu profited; the issue is the falsification of receipts, the same issue that the KMT is trying to hang Chen Shui-bian with.
Cheng An-kuo, the Director of the mayor's office who supervised the allowance reimbursements has resigned and his resignation was accepted by Ma. Cheng has also tried to dodge the bullet and stated that "the situation began before I arrived at the city government."
Ma has continued to add to the doublespeak by saying that he "needed to shoulder administrative, political, and moral responsibility for the blemish." Shoulder the responsibility? Ma is willing to shoulder the responsibility as long as all that this means is that he should apologize. As for Chen, however, shouldering the responsibility means that Chen should not just apologize, Chen should step down.
For those who have been in Taiwan for some time and watched Ma's doublespeak, his shuffle and how his performance has always fallen short of his words, the above is nothing new. If anything there is a certain satisfaction that what goes around comes around. Added to this is the curiosity as to how the foreign media that has always fawned over Ma Ying-jeou will try to make its own excuses.
Is the issue over? Not by a long shot. While Yu Wen allegedly substituted receipts of his own to make his job easier; Ma's real receipts are supposed to be there. Unfortunately, Ma's receipts could reveal how he did use the funds for personal expenses which is definitely illegal. Fortunately or shall we say conveniently for Ma, his receipts were sent to the prosecutor's office as potential evidence; this means that they are not available for public disclosure or scrutiny.
Stay tuned, the word on the street is that there is more and even bigger stuff that will hit the fan.