The ruling DPP yesterday found a committee member in the party's Taichung County Chapter, Wang Hsien-tang (
"Wang has violated the party's anti-vote-buying principles. The DPP Central Standing Committee (CSC) has therefore decided to take disciplinary action against him. We've proposed that the party's Central Review Committee revoke his party membership next week," DPP Chairman Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said yesterday.
Hsieh added that the party's investigation team had found evidence over the past two weeks that proved Wang had claimed to control the votes of 1,600 party members. Wang had also tried to sell those votes at a price of NT$1,000 to NT$5,000 per vote, according to DPP Taichung County Councilor Liu Kun-li (劉坤鱧), who reported the incidents to the party two weeks ago.
Hsieh yesterday further validated Liu's allegations and asked former DPP chairman Chang Chun-hung (
"It takes more courage to make an allegation than to testify as a witness. I'd like to support Liu's accusation about Wang's misconduct here because I, together with another DPP legislator, Chen Zau-nan (陳昭南), were there with him that day, witnessing everything that happened," Chang said, adding that the party had demonstrated its determination to wipe out vote-buying and corruption in elections.
Chang said he had found vote-buying in the DPP legislative primary this year to have been particularly serious, even though it had been rampant for years.
Hsieh said that there was an additional case currently under investigation.
The party yesterday also published the outcome of telephone polls involving six primary candidates in Taichung County. Last week the six candidates, worried about vote-buying, signed an agreement to cancel a vote by party members. A vote by party members is usually the second stage of party primaries and had been scheduled for April 1. In accordance with the agreement, four of the six will instead be chosen as the party's legislative candidates in Taichung County on the basis of the results of the telephone polls alone.
The agreement also involved a promise that no candidate would dispute the outcome of the election even if their poll figures were within the standard margin of error of 3 percent.
The poll results revealed the four successful candidates to be incumbent legislators Lin Feng-hsi (林豐喜) and Chiu Tai-san (邱太三), former director of the DPP's department of organizational development Kuo Chun-min (郭俊銘), and a Taichung official, Chien Chao-dong (簡肇棟). The two unsuccessful candidates were Taichung County councilors Liu Kun-li and Liu Chien-ho (劉錦和).
Chiu, Kuo and Chien are all members of the party's New Tide faction (
The party will confirm the nomination of the four candidates and that of a fifth -- a female candidate -- at the party's Central Executive Committee on April 3. It is the party's policy to nominate at least one female candidate among the five candidates for each constituency.
SEA WARNING LIKELY: The storm, named Gaemi, could become a moderate typhoon on Wednesday or Thursday, with the Taipei City Government preparing for flooding A tropical depression east of the Philippines developed into a tropical storm named Gaemi at 2pm yesterday, and was moving toward eastern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Gaemi could begin to affect Taiwan proper on Tuesday, lasting until Friday, and could develop into a moderate typhoon on Wednesday or Thursday, it said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued as early as Tuesday morning, it added. Gaemi, the third tropical storm in the Pacific Ocean this typhoon season, is projected to begin moving northwest today, and be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday, the agency said. Today, there would likely
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Hsu Wen-erh (許汶而) on Friday became the first Taiwanese to swim solo across the English Channel, saying she was very happy to bring Taiwan to the world. Hsu completed the challenge in 12 hours, 17 minutes and eight seconds, after swimming across the Strait of Gibraltar in October last year. She said she had planned to swim the English Channel in August next year, but seized the opportunity when a vacancy became available on the waiting list. She went to the UK in May to train for a test that involves swimming for six hours at 16°C, which people who want to swim