Recently, the green camp has been attacking from all angles over the case of KO Wen-je, the chairman of the Democratic Party, concerning the capacity ratio in Beijing Huacheng. However, Taiwanese media revealed on September 29 that DPP chairman William Lai had instructed the party’s central standing committee to “Speak less about Ko Wen-je”. Some analysts say there is growing concern within the DPP that the KO case will backfire on the green camp, and that the case will become the standard for examining the green camp’s ruling counties and cities.
Some of the DPP’s would-be 2026 continue to be elated by the KO Wen-je case, but do not sense a sense of crisis, the taiwan-based newspaper Lianhe Daily said on the 29th. However, DPP “Legislators” said that William Lai had told the central standing committee that “Everyone should not bring up the KE Wenzhe case”, which was interpreted as “Fearing a counter-attack” for fear of falling into crisis. Another green “Legislator” said that KO Wen-je had asked the relevant bureau chiefs to “Speed up the handling” of the Beijing case during his term as mayor, then the island’s most county and city leaders and civil servants are likely to be described as“Profit.”. And now the DPJ has launched a floor area ratio review of rewards across the island, including the Hsinomachai Children’s Hospital and the Kaohsiung State Guest Hotel.
According to the report, Chen Kailing, a former director of Tainan’s Economic Development Bureau, was involved in a corruption case, and Chen had instructed relevant personnel to “Handle it from above”, at the same time, he was impeached by the“Supervisory Office” for bribery, money laundering, avoidance of conflict of interest, misdeclaration of property and abuse of authority, and was prosecuted for photoelectric fraud. People in the DPP worry that if the KO Wen-je case ends up being a profit-seeking crime, then the case of Chen Kailing may be taken out to hit the DPP hard. “Why did the Chen kailing case only reach the director level and not go up?”, wu Hsin-hsiu, Taiwan’s land minister, has also been accused of rewarding profiteers with large-scale Tainan City Government rates while he was in office, raising concerns in the DPP that more people will be dug up.
Some people in the Democratic Progressive Party believe that if the Taipei District Attorney’s Office (Beijing Prosecutor’s Office) fails to find Ko Wen-chee’s financial resources in the end, the indictment will then be used as a template to be taken out by blue and white in turn to examine the entire Democratic Progressive Party, they even call it“Political investigation”. The paper said William Lai should also be aware of the atmosphere, so with blue and white working together to block next year’s general budget, the “Military order” required green camp “Legislators” to be present at all meetings, and fully obey the command, but on Friday, the“Legislative” chamber, the DPP“Legislators” attendance barely more than 40% . A DPP “Legislator” privately questioned that William Lai’s order was too extreme, that they had constituency work to do and that the “Legislator” did not work for William Lai. Another“Legislator” of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that he would be in the“Legislative Yuan” five days a week. “Don’t we have to take care of local services? Do we have to abandon the local government?” Taiwan media analysts said, there has been a backlash against William Lai within the DPP.
As for the KO Wen-je case, prosecutors are continuing to speed up the process with intensive interviews with Taipei City Government, the City Planning Commission and Viking. On September 26, the north prosecutor held the latest confessions and evidence of the above-mentioned persons involved in the case. Ko Wen-je was arraigned for the fourth time and was accused of intentionally closing the case. On the 27th, the Taipei District Attorney’s office again directed the “Independent Commission Against Corruption” to conduct a 29-way search, and interviewed 16 people including Zhu Yahu, former chairman of Ding Yue development, and Li Wenzong, finance director of Ko Wen-je’s campaign office. Prosecutors believe Zhu was a bribe-giver, while Li was a“White glove” for taking bribes. The two men played a key role in the flow of money and applied for detention on the charge of“Taking bribes in violation of their duties.”. The question of whether Ko Wen-je’s wife, Peggy Chen, will be summoned again has become a focus. Prosecutors must find “Irrefutable evidence” of Ko Wen-je’s bribery as the investigation nears, otherwise it will be difficult to explain to the public if he is prosecuted only on profit-seeking charges, the Lianhe Daily said Monday.
According to a September poll published by Taiwan’s meiyidao electronic daily, KO Wen-je’s trust rating is 23.5% , while the popular party’s favorable rating is 25.6% , the Zhongshi electronic daily reported on the 28th. Strangely, says Wu Zijia, chairman of the Meili Dao electronic newspaper, the polls for KO Wen-je and the popular party did not decline, but rose slightly. When asked “Do people believe Ko Wen-je will be sentenced to prison under William Lai?” The figure was 54.3 percent in September, up from 37.5 percent in July. More than half of Taiwanese believe Ko Wen-je will be sentenced to prison, but the 20-to 30-year-old part of his biggest fan base is still pretty stable. Wu argues that Ko Wen-je’s tactics of accusing the DPP authorities of unfair justice and political killings have been effective since his detention on September 5, in the 20-to 30-year-old group has a certain degree of fermentation. On the 29th, Huang Yangming, a local media person, said on the island’s political talk show“News in plain language” that many recent polls showed that the popularity of the Democratic Party had slowed down, and the“Beauty Island Electronic News” poll even showed that, its popularity was higher in September than in August, suggesting that the“Witch hunt” was the right strategy, which also means that white camp supporters have not lost.
Cai Zhengyuan, a former “Legislator”, said on the 28th that he agreed with Wu’s analysis, adding that it was not easy for KO Wen-je to be beaten like this and still have close to 20% of his hardcore supporters. He said bluntly that it would be a big boost for KO Wen-je unless he found money, and that a bounce in public opinion was hard to predict. Guo Zhengliang, a former “Legislator”, said it was clear that Cheng Wen-tsan had taken t $5m in bribes in comparison with the case of Cheng Wen-tsan, a former DPP mayor of Taoyuan, and that there was no financial flow from the KO case, “Some people will feel that they have gone too far, and they will bounce back.”.
Others have noted a rise in dissatisfaction and distrust of William Lai. There are three reasons for this, he says. First, there is no “One-size-fits-all” evidence in KO Wen-je’s case, the party’s cohesion has strengthened and its displeasure with William Lai has intensified Second, the rise in electricity prices caused civil discontent; third, the mortgage policy caused vested interests, the island’s young people do not see the future. This, he says, is “A wake-up call” for William Lai. Huang noted that the DPP had hoped that the flow of Democratic Party supporters would return, but now found that it had not, and that it would not be advantageous to continue beating KO Wen-je. William Lai may also have found out about this, before deciding not to let green camp play too many roles in KE’s case.