On Nov. 11, 45 top-level
Taichung City municipal officials, including two bureau directors, chose to join
the DPP en masse. Despite the possibility of violating administrative
neutrality, such an action has been interpreted as the committee chairman of the
DPP's Taichung division Chen Wen-hsien's (陳文憲) drive to rally support for
his wife, Taichung Mayor Chang Weng-ying (張溫鷹).
When the KMT was in power, similar cases were severely criticized by the
opposition parties. After coming to power, however, why has the DPP gone even
further, encouraging these officials to defect to the ruling party? Has the DPP
really lost its mind after coming to power?
According to the Law on Local Government Systems (地方制度法), local
government heads now have the power to name their own deputy mayors as well as
to add more top-level municipal officials as political appointees. This was to
strengthen the administrative power of local government heads while, at the same
time. ensuring that career or non-political bureaucrats would be able to remain
neutral.
Unfortunately, the mass induction ceremony in Taichung has clearly shown that
the law has failed to reach its aim. The administrative officials in Taichung
still need to sacrifice their own wills for the sake of keeping their jobs -- to
swing back and forth between the ruling and the opposition parties just like
willows.
Top-level officials have the right to freely join or leave any political
party. It does not violate administrative neutrality at all if they are inducted
-- on their free time -- without the use of any public resources. The political
meaning, however, of a group of top-level government officials collectively
joining the DPP should not be ignored. Such an action, in fact, is not simply an
exercise of civil rights but a terrible example of a violation of administrative
neutrality.
First of all, when a group of top-level government officials choose to join
the ruling party at the same time and in the same place, it is very difficult to
convince the public that they are just simply exercising their civil rights.
Besides, since they are all officials who serve in the same government, such an
action cannot be viewed as an individual's behavior but should be interpreted as
the collective behavior of a group of officials.
Moreover, since these officials are all top-level officials in the Taichung
City Government, it is clearly sending out a message that only officials who
choose to join the DPP can be promoted to the top. It is not only a blow to the
professionally-oriented administrative officials, but it also hurts
administrative neutrality in Taiwan significantly.
Kuei Hung-cheng is an assistant research fellow at the National Policy
Foundation.
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