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EDITORIAL: Nobbling
the horse
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) likes operating in the dark, behind closed
doors, with few in the know and several sets of books. What else can explain its
long-standing aversion to passing sunshine laws? It is certainly not acting in
the public’s interest.
The KMT likes keeping people in the dark so much that even one of its own
officials, the one theoretically in charge of reviewing a draft political
parties act, did not know why the bill was pulled from the Cabinet’s agenda on
Thursday. The Executive Yuan spokesman could only say that some problems still
needed to be worked out, but could not say what those pesky problems were.
Of course, any explanation the spokesman could come up with would likely sound
as lame as that offered by Minister Without Portfolio Luo Ying-shay (羅瑩雪), who
is in charge of reviewing the act, and who said she had asked a colleague to
find out why the draft was pulled from the agenda, but then had been too busy
working to call that colleague for the answer. One would think that the minister
might have wanted to find out on her own, since she is in charge of the bill,
but maybe ministers, even without portfolios, do not make their own phone calls.
What Luo could say was that the draft would bar political parties from investing
in property and making money and it would set a two-year time limit for parties
to transfer ownership or sell off all their assets. It was a complete set of
regulations about political parties, including how to found one, she said.
You can see why the KMT might be feeling a bit nervous. After all, this is the
party that transferred millions of dollars worth of state property and
facilities to fill its own coffers, making it the richest political party in the
world for decades. It is led by a man who has repeatedly promised to resolve the
stolen party asset issue — and promote the sunshine laws — but has proven as
incapable of doing that as he has keeping the majority of his presidential
campaign promises. It is also the party and the man who have made sure that the
proceeds of any party assets that have been sold off have been returned to the
party’s coffers, not the national treasury where they rightfully belong.
The political party act was first mooted back in 2005 when the Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) was in office. At that time the KMT said it wanted four
sunshine bills, including the political party bill, a lobbying bill, amendments
to the 1993 Public Functionary Assets Disclosure Act (公務人員財產申報法) and some
changes to the 2004 Political Donations Act (政治獻金法). The DPP had nine bills it
wanted to see passed, including its versions of a party law and lobbying law. In
addition, it wanted laws regulating the behavior of legislators and public
servants (including conflict of interest and property declaration), among
others.
Even though the KMT has held a legislative majority while both in and out of
power, it has somehow not been able to achieve its own goals, but did succeed in
blocking the DPP’s. For example, in November 2008, President Ma Ying-jeou’s
(馬英九) administration sent back the DPP’s version of the political party act from
the legislature for further review. It took almost two more years before it had
a draft of the act ready to send to the Executive Yuan, and now, another two
years later, the bill still languishes in executive limbo.
Just over a year ago, Ma established the Agency Against Corruption — to prevent
corruption he said. Ignoring the fact that the agency missed the biggest
corruption case in years — that against former Executive Yuan secretary-general
Lin Yi-shih’s (林益世) — it seems that Ma is only willing to support
anti-corruption and clean government efforts when it does not involve his own
party.
The administration and the KMT can huff and puff all they want about being
against corruption, but until the rest of the sunshine laws are passed — with
teeth — it will be seen as just more hot air. There is no reason for redrafting
the political parties act to have taken four years, unless you are trying to
nobble the horse.
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