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Former vice president
Lu calls on Ma to step down
NOT UP TO SCRATCH: Annette Lu said Ma has failed
to live up to the vows he recited during his inaugurations as president and has
fallen short of the public’s expectations
By Chen Ching-min and Stacy Hsu / Staff Reporter, with Staff
Writer
Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday issued an online statement
urging President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to step down and take responsibility for his
poor governance and autocratic actions regarding the revocation of Legislative
Speaker Wang Jin-pyng’s (王金平) Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) membership.
She called on members of the public to show their concern about the country’s
future by joining a “civic alliance to recall Ma.”
During his five years serving as head of state and commander-in-chief, Ma has
not lived up to the presidential vows he recited during his inauguration, Lu
said in a statement posted on her Facebook page yesterday.
He has fallen far short of the public’s expectations, which is why he should be
subjected to severe punishment, Lu said.
“Ma’s failure to live up to his presidential vows is the cause of his plummeting
approval rating. The latest poll [conducted by TVBS] shows that his approval
rating has dropped to only 11 percent, compared to a disapproval rating of 68
percent. Another survey [by the Taiwan Indicators Survey Research] also shows
that as much as 70 percent of Taiwanese have no faith in the president’s future
performance,” Lu said.
An incompetent leader like Ma, whose poor governance, China-leaning stance and
damage to the nation’s constitutional mechanism have driven the people to
despair, should voluntarily step down, Lu said.
Lu also urged lawmakers across party lines to immediately launch a recall motion
against Ma to alleviate the public’s concerns, safeguard Taiwan’s constitutional
system and protect the country’s sovereignty and security.
Lu said the president’s perceived manipulation of the Special Investigation
Division (SID) and the KMT’s Central Evaluation and Discipline Committee to take
down Wang underlined Ma’s autocratic governing style and constituted a severe
violation of the doctrine of the separation of powers.
Since Ma took office in 2008, his dereliction of duty had undermined the
nation’s sovereignty, damaged its dignity, brought about economic recession and
pushed the country to the verge of bankruptcy, Lu said.
“Instead of safeguarding national security as the nation’s commander-in-chief is
supposed to, Ma has sat idly by while the military is plagued by irregularities
and has promoted an all-volunteer military system that could cripple our
national defense,” Lu said.
“More alarmingly, as a result of Ma’s pandering to China, our soldiers have no
idea who they are fighting for, causing unease in the nation,” Lu said.
Lu’s statement came on the heels of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP)
announcement of its plan to initiate an impeachment of Ma in the legislature, a
move aimed at holding the president accountable for what the party described as
jeopardizing the nation’s constitutional order and political stability by
carrying out political persecution against Wang.
Wang, a long-time KMT member, saw his membership revoked by the party’s
discipline committee last week, after the SID used information obtained during
an alleged illegal wiretap operation to back its accusations that Wang had
illegally lobbied for a lawsuit involving DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘).
The scandal has ignited a public outcry aimed at Ma, whom many believe was the
mastermind behind what appeared to be a carefully orchestrated political
vendetta against Wang.
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