The first electoral district of Miaoli County will hold a by-election on March 14 to fill the seat vacated by Lee E-tin (李乙廷), whose election was formally invalidated because of vote-buying, the Central Election Commission (CEC) announced on Friday.
The proposal to hold the legislative by-election on the second Saturday in March was unanimously approved at a meeting of CEC commissioners, a CEC statement said.
The CEC schedule said an election gazette will be issued on Jan. 5, and hopefuls could register their candidacy between Jan. 12 and Jan. 16.
Qualified candidates will draw lots on Feb. 18 to determine the order in which their names will appear on the ballots and can present their platforms in officially organized campaign forums from March 4 to March 13.
CEC officials said the Miaoli County Government originally suggested that the by-election be held on March 7, but with six national civil service exams taking place that day, CEC commissioners decided to hold the by-election a week later on March 14.
Lee, of the governing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), was elected as a first-term lawmaker on Jan. 12 earlier this year but lost the seat on Dec. 10 when the Taiwan High Court’s Taichung branch rejected his appeal against a May 28 Miaoli District Court ruling that had annulled his election on vote-buying charges.
Lee was the first member of the current legislature to lose a seat. The loss is not expected to have much impact on the lawmaking body, where the KMT and its allies hold nearly three-fourths of the seats.
Lee, a former secretary-general of the Miaoli County Farmers’ Association, garnered 64,817 votes in the Jan. 12 election against 46,905 votes for two-term legislator Tu Wen-ching (杜文卿) of the Democratic Progressive Party.
Tu filed a civil suit seeking the invalidation of Lee’s election.
The court verdict said Lee made 16 visits to temples in Yuanli and Jhunan — two of the eight townships in one of Miaoli County’s two electoral districts — between June and October last year.
During that time he made donations and solicited support via his campaign aides for his election bid. Because Lee had not been previously known to make donations to temples and had only done so during the election campaign, the court ruled they were designed to improperly influence voter behavior.
The high court had the final say on the case.
As Lee’s remaining term in office exceeds one year, the CEC must hold a by-election within three months of the court verdict under the existing Public Officials Election and Recall Law (公職人員選罷法).
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant
Beijing’s recent provocative actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea were partly meant as a “dress rehearsal” for the invasion of Taiwan, former US deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger said at a Heritage Foundation forum in Washington on Tuesday. Beijing’s blocking of a Philippine resupply mission on June 17 with unprecedented violence had multiple implications. “What they’re doing is trying to demonstrate that they can blockade, create a sense of futility and discredit the idea that the United States is going to help not only the Philippines, but by extension Taiwan,” Pottinger said. Pottinger was referring to a clash