Although Taitung Council Speaker Wu Chun-li (
Wu, of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), who ran for the top job in Taitung County as an independent candidate, received 62,189 votes in Saturday's polls, triumphing over his rival, Taitung Deputy Commissioner Liu Chuan-hao (劉櫂豪), who also ran as an independent and received 40,173 votes.
Wu is currently Taitung Council Speaker.
The Ministry of Interior is likely to issue a suspension order when Wu assumes office on Dec. 27.
Wu and the KMT have said they will launch a legal battle against the order.
Wu was charged with corruption while serving as a Taitung County councilor in 1999.
Taitung District Court in 2002 sentenced him to 16 years in prison, but the Taiwan High Court's Hualien branch in 2003 reduced that sentence to seven years and eight months in jail.
Wu has appealed the ruling.
The Ministry of Interior has said that according to the Law on Local Government Systems (
The interior ministry also previously said that "if Wu is elected on Dec. 3, he must be suspended from his post in accordance with the law."
Minister of Justice Morley Shih (
Wu faces other difficulties. He was charged with vote-buying a few days before the elections, and was released on NT$1 million (US$29,800) bail.
Wu yesterday said that "there is no issue of suspension" because the Law and Local Government Systems applies mayors or commissioners, but the corruption lawsuit he faces occurred when he was a Taichung county councilor.
"As such, the law does not apply to me," he said.
Wu also said that the justice system would prove him innocent.
Wu's campaign headquarters said that Wu would be willing to run for the post again in a by-election.
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A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese
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