Wu Te-mei

Wu Te-mei (Chinese: 吳德美; 23 November 1947 – 6 December 2015) was a Taiwanese politician.

Wu was born on 23 November 1947 in Kaohsiung.^[1][2] In 1972, her husband Chu An-hsiung [zh] mounted an independent bid for the Kaohsiung City Council. For supporting his campaign, Wu was expelled from the Kuomintang.^[3] Wu herself served on the Kaohsiung City Council between 1981 and 1985.^[4] In 1983, Wu won her first election to the Legislative Yuan, and retained her seat in 1986, 1989, and 1993.^[5]

Throughout their political careers, Wu and Chu invested in several businesses.^[5] In May 2000, the couple were charged with accounting fraud.^[6] By December 2002, when Chu was elected city council speaker, the case had not yet been heard in court.^[3] Later that month, both Wu and Chu were arrested and a court hearing was scheduled for January 2003.^[7][8] Shortly after questioning by prosecutors, Wu was released on bail while Chu remained in custody.^[9] Chu did not report to the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office to begin serving his sentence in October 2003.^[10] The next month, Wu claimed that Chu's political rival Chen Tien-miao had bought votes to win the 1994 speakership election and called for the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office to investigate him.^[11] The allegations were made on the same day the Kaohsiung District Court had sentenced Wu to six months imprisonment.^[12] Her sentence was eventually extended to six years and eight months, which she began serving in 2009. Wu was released on medical parole in 2013 and underwent dialysis treatments.^[13][14] The Kaohsiung District Court ruled in a separate case heard in February 2010, that Wu was guilty of vote buying on her daughter's behalf in a 2006 municipal election.^[15] Wu died aged 68 on 6 December 2015, of kidney failure caused by diabetes.^[14][16] Chu, who had left for China, did not return for Wu's funeral held on 21 December 2015.^[17]