Prime Minister of Taiwan Quits Over Typhoon Response
BEIJING — The prime minister of Taiwan resigned Monday after widespread criticism of the government’s response to a deadly typhoon and said that his successor would replace the entire cabinet this week.
Liu Chao-shiuan, Taiwan's prime minister, announced his resignation in Taipei on Monday.
The announcement at a news conference by the prime minister, Liu Chao-shiuan, came as a surprise, even though the government had come under intense pressure for what many Taiwanese called its inept handling of the response to Typhoon Morakot. The storm slammed into Taiwan in early August and left at least 700 people dead or missing after three days of heavy rain set off huge mudslides. Mr. Liu’s resignation is the most serious political fallout yet from the typhoon.
Popular support for President Ma Ying-jeou, who was elected by a wide margin in the spring of 2008 on a platform of rejuvenating the economy and improving ties with mainland China, has also plummeted in the aftermath of the disaster.
Mr. Ma reluctantly allowed the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of the Tibetans, who is accused of being a separatist by mainland China, to visit Taiwan last week to give succor to typhoon victims. Some analysts said it was a sign of Mr. Ma’s desperation.
Mr. Ma, who has the power to appoint the prime minister, chose Wu Den-yih as the replacement for Mr. Liu. Since 2007, Mr. Wu has been the general secretary of the Kuomintang, the party to which Mr. Ma belongs. The party governed Taiwan for decades after retreating here in 1949 after its loss to the Communists in the Chinese civil war.
Mr. Wu was appointed mayor of Kaohsiung, a city in southern Taiwan, in 1990 and won election to another four-year term in 1994.
At the news conference on Monday, Mr. Liu said he had first offered Mr. Ma his resignation in mid-August. Mr. Liu said that while the president had asked him to stay on, he had already decided to step down. The two had a conversation on Sunday night at the house of Mr. Liu’s mother, Mr. Liu said.
“I believe because so many people died, someone must take responsibility,” he said.
The prime minister appoints the entire cabinet, which has eight ministries established under the Constitution and many newer commissions. The current cabinet will resign on Thursday, Mr. Liu said.
Critics of the government say that, among many other things, Mr. Ma and other leaders should have evacuated residents in vulnerable areas before the typhoon hit and accepted foreign aid much earlier.
J. Bruce Jacobs, a scholar of Taiwan at Monash University in Australia, said that he was surprised to hear of the change, but that Mr. Liu deserved to be held accountable for the “disastrous” government response to the typhoon.
“I think generally people will be pleased because there’s a change, but whether they’ll be pleased with Wu Den-yih, I don’t know,” Mr. Jacobs said.
Mr. Jacobs added that Mr. Wu was a somewhat disappointing choice because he was not known as someone who pressed anticorruption efforts within the Kuomintang. But a reform-minded party member, Eric Chu, has been appointed vice prime minister, Mr. Jacobs said.
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