Yunlin Prosecutors’ Office detained a borough warden yesterday on suspicion of buying votes for a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate for the Yunlin legislative by-election on Saturday.
Prosecutors and investigators said they have questioned 18 people, including Dounan Township (斗南) warden and borough wardens.
Office spokesman Chiang Te-lung (蔣得龍) said 11 borough wardens admitted that they each had received NT$1,000 to support the KMT candidate Chang Ken-hui (張艮輝), a professor at Yunlin Technology University, and one person was detained after questioning.
Chang’s campaign office has denied the allegation, saying that Chang would resign or not take up the seat if he were to be elected and the allegation proved true.
The incident also sparked political infighting in the KMT as Chang’s office fingered his rival, independent candidate Chang Hui-yuan (張輝元), as the mastermind behind the smear campaign.
Chang Hui-yuan’s son, former KMT legislator Chang Sho-wen (張碩文), challenged Chang Ken-hui’s camp to take them to court and threatened to sue them if they did.
The by-election has been called to fill the seat left vacant by Chang Sho-wen, who won the seat in January last year, but lost it earlier this month after the High Court found him guilty of participating in a vote-buying scheme organized by his father.
Chang Hui-yuan, who was found guilty of vote buying in the first trial, registered with the KMT to run in the by-election on behalf of his son earlier this month.
The KMT later rejected his registration based on the revised version of its “black-gold exclusion clause,” which states that party members who are found guilty of corruption in their first trial cannot to be nominated for any election.
Meanwhile, the KMT said yesterday it would discuss the party’s candidate for the Nantou legislative by-election at a meeting today.
The seat had been held by Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), who became premier on Sept. 10. The Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) states that a by-election must be held within three months, or in this case before Dec. 10.
As the local elections are scheduled for Dec. 20, the KMT said it hoped to see the Nantou legislative by-election held in tandem with the local elections. But it said the decision would have to be made by the Central Election Commission.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
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Three people have had their citizenship revoked after authorities confirmed that they hold Chinese ID cards, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said yesterday. Two of the three people were featured in a recent video about Beijing’s “united front” tactics by YouTuber Pa Chiung (八炯) and Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源), including Su Shi-en (蘇士恩), who displayed a Chinese ID card in the video, and taekwondo athlete Lee Tung-hsien (李東憲), who mentioned he had obtained a Chinese ID card in a telephone call with Chen, Liang told the council’s weekly news conference. Lee, who reportedly worked in
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