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 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]