Chen Chu

Chen Chu (Chinese: 陳菊; pinyin: Chén Jú; Wade–Giles: Ch'en2 Chü2; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tân Kiok; born 10 June 1950), also known as Kiku Chen or Joyce Chen, is a Taiwanese politician serving as president of the Control Yuan and chairwoman of the National Human Rights Commission since 2020. Before assuming her current post, Chen had served as Secretary-General to the President from 2018 to 2020 and Mayor of Kaohsiung from 2006 to 2018, making her the longest-serving mayor of the city since the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. Prior to her entrance into politics, Chen was one of the eight prominent dissidents in the Kaohsiung Incident arrested and charged in 1979. She was a political prisoner for almost six years during the martial law period in Taiwan. Chen had also served in various capacities with the Taipei and Kaohsiung city governments between 1995 and 2000, with the latter being the year when she graduated from the National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU) with a master's degree in public affairs. She then served as Minister of the Council of Labor Affairs, the precursor to present-day Ministry of Labor, in various cabinets between 2000 and 2005. Chen won the 2006 Kaohsiung mayoral election and became the Republic of China's first directly-elected female mayor of a special municipality. She was twice reelected in 2010 and 2014 with about 53% and 68% of the votes respectively. Nearly a month after she tendered her resignation from the role of Secretary-General to the President, President Tsai Ing-wen nominated Chen, who supports abolishing altogether the Examination Yuan and Control Yuan, as the next President of the Control Yuan on 22 June 2020 amid dissent from the opposition. Legislative Yuan confirmed the nomination on a 65-3 vote after days of violence in the chamber. Lawmakers from the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People's...