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).
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
The Chinese military has boosted its capability to fight at a high tempo using the element of surprise and new technology, the Ministry of National Defense said in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) published on Monday last week. The ministry highlighted Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) developments showing significant changes in Beijing’s strategy for war on Taiwan. The PLA has made significant headway in building capabilities for all-weather, multi-domain intelligence, surveillance, operational control and a joint air-sea blockade against Taiwan’s lines of communication, it said. The PLA has also improved its capabilities in direct amphibious assault operations aimed at seizing strategically important beaches,
RSS