Taiwan's Former President Chen Gets Life Term

The life sentence for Chen Shui-bian marks the dramatic end of an illustrious political career. Born in 1950 in a poor peasant's family in southern Taiwan, Chen represented the "native Taiwanese" as opposed to the refugees from mainland China who had dominated the island's politics for decades.

He was a brilliant law student and lawyer- a fact which the court held against him when it convicted him of embezzling state funds, laundering money, accepting bribes and commiting forgery.

Chen built his career in the '80s and '90s on challenging the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang or KMT. He was elected mayor of Taipei in 1994. The popular leader of the Democratic Progressive Party or DPP, affectionately called "A Bian" by his followers, then went on to become Taiwan's first non-KMT president.

Pro-independence leader

Chen ruled Taiwan over two terms between 2000 and 2008. During his tenure, relations with mainland China were at an all-time low, because Chen openly favoured, and continues to favour, full independence for Taiwan.

Soon after he stepped down as president last year, Chen was arrested and indicted.

The DPP says Friday's verdict was only to be expected. They see Chen as the victim of a revenge campaign by the KMT, which is now back in government. Senior DPP lawmaker Ker Chien-Ming puts it this way: "Having used the judiciary all the way to go after A Bian and to slowly torture to death both the DPP and the former president, why would the KMT rest before they cut off his head?"

The KMT, for its part, rejects these allegations as baseless. Parliamentarian Hung Hsiu-chu says, "corruption and money-laundering are crimes in all countries, for which he ought to remain in jail for the rest of his life. Now with this indefinite jail term, he still has the chance of being released earlier. His son and daughter-in-law only got sentences of one, two years which can be suspended. So it’s quite human after all!"

Political culture damaged

Chen Shui-bian has infuriated his opponents by denying any wrongdoing. He claims he was set up by his political adversaries in revenge for his pro-independence stance, and admits only to what he calls "social and cultural" mistakes.

Chiu Yi, another KMT legislator who has been particularly dedicated to targeting the former president for his crimes in office, calls Chen Shui-bian the "most shameless man in the whole of Taiwan". "Besides corruption and money-laundering, what Chen Shui-bian has really done is to trample on Taiwan’s traditional culture of a good society," Chiu Yi says.

Although Chen Shui-bian left the DPP a year ago, Friday's verdict is bound to damage the party. But with the Kuomintang and President Ma Ying-jeou facing popular anger over their slow response to the recent typhoon Morakot, it doesn't seem that the government will get a major boost from it either. The strong polarisation in Taiwan's politics, though, has only become more pronounced.

Author: Thomas Bärthlein
Editor: Grahame Lucas