Pan-blue camp lawyers yesterday conceded that the vote recount would not give them victory, but hoped that the courts would call new polls because of fraud they claim was committed as part of President Chen Shui-bian's (
Chen beat Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
Lien said the shooting may have been staged to win sympathy votes and has filed two lawsuits to overturn Chen's victory and seek a new election.
"We have absolute confidence in the job we are doing and we will let the numbers speak for themselves and let the court make a final decision," pan-blue lawyer Lee Tsung-teh (
The lawyers said a vote recount completed in May had narrowed the difference to 21,863, with 40,327 disputed ballots awaiting a final ruling by the High Court, expected by September.
The High Court has called lawyers from both sides to a meeting this Monday to discuss the lawsuit seeking to nullify Chen's victory, and to set a hearing for the second suit, which seeks a new poll, for next Friday.
The opposition lawyers said that the disputed votes alone would not be enough to reverse the outcome, but added that they had found nearly 20,000 ballots that did not match voter registration lists, suggesting fraud.
"There were what we classified as ghost ballots, lost ballots and stolen ballots," lawyer Jaclyn Tsai told a news conference.
In many cases, the number of votes cast exceeded the number of eligible voters, the lawyers said. They said that various other irregularities had been found in 99 percent of voting booths.
"People should be able to trust the outcome of the election. But so many things went wrong in this election," Tsai said.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said the recount has not found signs of vote-rigging and that the outcome would not be reversed.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but