Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) yesterday accused SET-TV chief Lin Kuan-hei (林崑海) of establishing a sweepstakes to sway Saturday’s elections.
Lin and Huang Chun-chieh (黃俊傑), a local powerbroker in Greater Kaohsiung, were recently questioned by prosecutors over their alleged involvement in election betting, but prosecutors have supposedly lost track of their whereabouts, said Chiu, who is seeking re-election in the city’s seventh district.
Kaohsiung District Prosecutors Office declined to comment on the allegations.
Photo: Sean Chao, Taipei Times
Prosecutor Huang Tsai-hsiu (黃彩秀) said that the office did not comment on specific cases because of confidentiality during the judicial investigation process.
Huang Tsai-hsiu said that prosecutors with the office have received several items of information related to gambling on election outcomes and have issued summonses, without revealing for whom subpoenas had been issued.
Chiu said Lin operates the sweepstakes according to a pyramid scheme business model.
Lin allegedly aims to get 10,000 people to participate in the game by offering 10:7 odds on a NT$3,000 bet that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative candidate Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) would beat Chiu.
“It’s actually vote-buying under the guise of betting because people who place a bet will get NT$5,100 back if Chao wins,” Chiu said.
The betting would create a margin of 20,000 ballots if 10,000 people take part in the game and they recruit a further 10,000 people to vote for the blue camp, Chiu said, adding that such a margin would be enough to change the election result.
Lin and Huang Chun-chieh are also taking bets on the presidential race, Chiu said.
Later in the day, Chang Cheng-fen (張正芬), a spokesperson for SET-TV, dismissed the allegations, saying Lin went to work yesterday as usual.
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