The New Taipei City Government is using illicit tactics to ensure that the incumbent mayor is re-elected, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) New Taipei City mayoral candidate Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday.
The city government has turned down his request to hold a campaign event at a public facility on the eve of the Nov. 26 local elections, he added.
Lin and his campaign managers said they had filed a request to hold a rally on Nov. 25 at the Banciao Stadium, and when that request was denied, applied for another rally on a nearby road, which was also denied.
Photo courtesy of Lin Chia-lung’s campaign office
“It is very clear that New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) and his camp are cheating on us. This is not a fair competition,” Lin told reporters, citing an “opaque application process.”
He applied for a rally on that date early in his campaign, but the city government told him that the stadium would be used for a campaign event by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Lin said, adding that he was told the KMT had applied for the event in May.
He then applied to hold an event on a road near the New Taipei City Hall, but the city government also denied that request, citing traffic flow, security and crowd control issues, Lin said.
“Hou’s camp and the New Taipei City Government are doing the same as the city government did eight years ago, when then-DPP New Taipei City mayoral candidate You Si-kun (游錫?) encountered all sorts of meddling,” he said.
You, who now serves as legislative speaker, could only confirm the site for his election eve rally a few days before the event, Lin added.
Hou said that the city government denied Lin’s request on grounds unrelated to his own re-election campaign.
”The department of the city government responsible for such requests … has explained the reasons very clearly,” Hou said, adding that the denial was on a legally sound basis.
Hou’s campaign spokesman, Wu Liang-hsien (吳亮賢), said the registration process for holding an event at the stadium is “very transparent.”
“The KMT will already hold a rally at the stadium, so officials had to turn Lin’s request down,” Wu said.
Allowing the two concurrent events at the stadium would “create traffic and crowd control problems,” the spokesman said, adding that it would not be possible to create a “buffer zone” between them.
The stadium and locations near the city hall have in the past been popular for election eve rallies by KMT and DPP candidates running for city mayor, with some saying the locations are symbolic, while others cited their proximity to public transportation hubs.
The Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) stipulates that the organizers of election rallies, as well as street protests, must file “outdoor assembly and parade permit applications” at least six days before the planned event.
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