TAIPEI (Bloomberg): A high-profile government spokeswoman in Taiwan has resigned after a media outlet reported that she had an affair with a government-appointed bodyguard.
The Presidential Office’s Kolas Yotaka tendered her resignation on Wednesday (June 28) to avoid any negative impact on its work, office spokesperson Lin Yu-chan said in a statement.
President Tsai Ing-wen approved Kolas’s resignation, it said. Kolas, a member of Taiwan’s Amis minority group, is known for becoming the first indigenous person to serve as spokesperson for the office of Taiwan’s leader or the Cabinet.
The episode comes as Taiwan’s political, business, entertainment and academic scenes are rocked nearly daily by accusations of sexual misconduct by well-known figures.
Earlier this month, Tsai apologised twice in a week over sexual harassment allegations involving the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. At least three lawmakers from the opposition Kuomintang have also had harassment complaints leveled at them.
The unfurling #MeToo movement in Taiwan, a democracy of 23 million people, complicates the run-up to a presidential election coming in January 2024.
That race is being closely watched in the US, which supplies Taiwan with weapons to defend against any military aggression by Beijing.
China considers Taiwan a breakaway territory that must be reclaimed by force if necessary, and has twice held major exercises near the island since August. President Joe Biden has repeatedly said the US would defend Taiwan if it was attacked, though aides walked back his comments each time.
The DPP’s stance is that Taiwan is already an independent nation, whereas the KMT is China’s preferred negotiating partner.
Kolas is a former lawmaker who ran for local office in Hualien county, in eastern Taiwan, in November last year. Taipei-based Mirror Media citing unidentified people familiar with the matter reported that a married police officer was assigned to serve as her bodyguard during her campaign and that she had an affair with him.
Kolas said in a Facebook post she "wasn’t aware of the true situation in the man’s marriage and never had intimate behavior that crossed the boundaries with him.” She said the Mirror Media report exaggerated details and took some other information out of context.
She no longer has any contact with the man, she said, adding that "the truth will be clarified.”
The United Daily News, which tends to support the KMT, said in a commentary that the episode could hurt Vice President Lai Ching-te, the DPP’s candidate in the presidential election.
The newspaper described Kolas as a confidant of Lai’s, and noted that he publicly endorsed her when she ran for office in Hualien.
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