The Tainan branch of the Taiwan High Court yesterday annulled the election victory of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Chang Sho-wen (張碩文).
The ruling is final. Chang may not appeal.
Chang won a regional legislative seat in Yunlin County in January last year, but his defeated opponent, Liu Chien-kuo (劉建國) of the Democratic Progressive Party, accused him of vote-buying and filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the election result.
After the Yunlin District Court annulled his election victory in November last year, Chang appealed the case to the Taiwan High Court.
The High Court’s ruling upheld the Yunlin District Court’s ruling to annul the election result, and confirms that Chang was aware of and had taken part in a vote-buying scheme organized by his father, Chang Hui-yuan (張輝元), the head of a local irrigation association, to solicit votes by offering cash bribes to voters.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said that the party would choose a candidate for the by-election in Yunlin within a week, adding that the party was confident of winning the legislative seat.
Cheng said that former KMT legislator Lee E-tin (李乙廷) from Miaoli County and Chang had both lost their seats because of vote-buying charges, and some KMT legislators’ vote-buying lawsuits were still pending in court.
He said the party asked that the courts rule on those cases soon and not delay them until the legislators in question had completed their terms.
Cheng criticized the KMT legislators for winning elections by bribing voters. Meanwhile, Yunlin County Deputy Commissioner Lee Ying-yuan (李應元), a DPP member, yesterday announced he was quitting his post to enter the race.
Chang issued a text message last night, saying that he had kept a low profile during the trial because he did not want to interfere in the judicial process, unlike his rivals.
Chang said he regretted the verdict but that he still believed in the judiciary.
He said that he felt wronged and could not agree with the court’s decision.
“Today marks a new beginning in my life. I will never give up,” he said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
‘DANGEROUS GAME’: Legislative Yuan budget cuts have already become a point of discussion for Democrats and Republicans in Washington, Elbridge Colby said Taiwan’s fall to China “would be a disaster for American interests” and Taipei must raise defense spending to deter Beijing, US President Donald Trump’s pick to lead Pentagon policy, Elbridge Colby, said on Tuesday during his US Senate confirmation hearing. The nominee for US undersecretary of defense for policy told the Armed Services Committee that Washington needs to motivate Taiwan to avoid a conflict with China and that he is “profoundly disturbed” about its perceived reluctance to raise defense spending closer to 10 percent of GDP. Colby, a China hawk who also served in the Pentagon in Trump’s first team,
SEPARATE: The MAC rebutted Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is China’s province, asserting that UN Resolution 2758 neither mentions Taiwan nor grants the PRC authority over it The “status quo” of democratic Taiwan and autocratic China not belonging to each other has long been recognized by the international community, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday in its rebuttal of Beijing’s claim that Taiwan can only be represented in the UN as “Taiwan, Province of China.” Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) yesterday at a news conference of the third session at the 14th National People’s Congress said that Taiwan can only be referred to as “Taiwan, Province of China” at the UN. Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, which is not only history but
CROSSED A LINE: While entertainers working in China have made pro-China statements before, this time it seriously affected the nation’s security and interests, a source said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) late on Saturday night condemned the comments of Taiwanese entertainers who reposted Chinese statements denigrating Taiwan’s sovereignty. The nation’s cross-strait affairs authority issued the statement after several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑), Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜) and Michelle Chen (陳妍希), on Friday and Saturday shared on their respective Sina Weibo (微博) accounts a post by state broadcaster China Central Television. The post showed an image of a map of Taiwan along with the five stars of the Chinese flag, and the message: “Taiwan is never a country. It never was and never will be.” The post followed remarks
INVESTMENT WATCH: The US activity would not affect the firm’s investment in Taiwan, where 11 production lines would likely be completed this year, C.C. Wei said Investments by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in the US should not be a cause for concern, but rather seen as the moment that the company and Taiwan stepped into the global spotlight, President William Lai (賴清德) told a news conference at the Presidential Office in Taipei yesterday alongside TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家). Wei and US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday announced plans to invest US$100 billion in the US to build three advanced foundries, two packaging plants, and a research and development center, after Trump threatened to slap tariffs on chips made
RSS