As the campaigns for the Taipei and Kaohsiung mayoral and city councilor elections enter their final stages, there have been new developments in the investigations launched in connection with last year's three-in-one county, city and township elections.
The Ministry of Justice announced that district prosecutors around the nation have filed lawsuits requesting that the election of 62 county and city councilors and township mayors be declared invalid due to vote-buying, thereby setting an unwelcome new record.
The ministry's records showed that, in total, the three-in-one elections resulted in lawsuits from 12 district prosecutors against 35 county and city councilors and 27 township mayors asking that their elections be revoked, sending a brutal wake up call to local government.
lawsuits
In addition, this year's elections for village chiefs, borough wardens and township representatives had also resulted in prosecutors in Taoyuan and five other counties filing 26 lawsuits to have election results reversed due to vote buying, the second highest figure ever.
Two county councilors and two township mayors have already had their elections invalidated due to vote buying.
Officials at the Ministry of Justice said that past elections have normally generated less than 10 and no more than about a dozen lawsuits to have elections invalidated, but that officials this year have made an all-out effort to stamp out vote buying.
invalidation threat
Minister of Justice Morley Shih (
Shih added that final verdicts will be handed down in less than one year.
The four elected officials who have already had their elections invalidated are the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) Tsai Yuan-chen (蔡元珍), originally elected mayor of Wuchiu Township in Kinmen County; Chu Yu-hsuan (朱有玄) independent Hsinchu County councilor; Chen Fu-hou (陳富厚), independent Penghu County councilor and the KMT's Chen Tung-hai (陳東海), mayor of Shoufeng Township (壽豐) in Hualien County.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
TRUMP ERA: The change has sparked speculation on whether it was related to the new US president’s plan to dismiss more than 1,000 Joe Biden-era appointees The US government has declined to comment on a post that indicated the departure of Laura Rosenberger as chair of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). Neither the US Department of State nor the AIT has responded to the Central News Agency’s questions on the matter, after Rosenberger was listed as a former chair on the AIT’s official Web site, with her tenure marked as 2023 to this year. US officials have said previously that they usually do not comment on personnel changes within the government. Rosenberger was appointed head of the AIT in 2023, during the administration of former US president Joe
RSS