Taiwan's ruling party chairman resigns after indictment
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Brad [2011-05-20]
The chairman of Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party Yu Shyi-kun announced his resignation on Thursday morning, days after he was charged with corruption and forgery.
Yu promised he would resign after he was indicted last week, saying he would formally resign after the plenary meeting of the DPP on September 30.
At a news conference on Thursday morning, he said he had resigned earlier than scheduled because he has different strategies to other party members towards the election next year and a party resolution.
Taiwan prosecutors on Sept. 21 indicted Lu Hsiu-lien, Chen Tang-shan, and Yu Shyi-kun of the DPP on graft charges for their misuse of special funds.
They said Yu had used other people's receipts to claim 2.38 million New Taiwan dollars (around 721,000 U.S. dollars) in reimbursement from the "special funds" for administrative leaders when he acted as head of Taiwan's "Executive Yuan".
DPP's candidates for the 2008 Taiwan leader election Hsieh Chang-ting and and his running mate Su Tseng-chang were cleared of similar allegations, according to Taiwan media reports.