Lin Hsing-er (林杏兒) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) might be denied her post as a Taipei city councilor after the Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday filed a civil case regarding the Nov. 26 election in Taipei’s first electoral district.
Prosecutors also issued an arrest warrant for KMT Central Standing Committee member Hsiao Ching-tien (蕭景田), a former legislator, after he failed to respond to a summons regarding alleged vote-buying.
Prosecutors in the past few days have questioned Lin and other KMT members about the alleged cash-for-votes scheme leading up to last month’s election, which decided posts in the city’s Shilin (士林) and Beitou (北投) districts.
Photo: Yang Hsin-hui, Taipei Times
The prosecutors’ office is seeking to invalidate the votes for Lin.
Hsiao was the main financial backer of Lin’s campaign. He has been accused of leading a cash-for-votes scheme.
Prosecutors questioned more than 20 borough wardens and Tseng Fan-chuan (曾繁川), head of the electoral district’s KMT chapter.
Prosecutors said that they have sufficient evidence to press charges, including witness testimony, recordings of telephone calls in which Tseng allegedly instructed borough wardens to distribute money and ask people to vote for Lin.
Evidence shows that some wardens received NT$10,000 (US$325.65), prosecutors said.
Lin is the KMT’s deputy spokeswoman. She was previously a member of the party’s Central Standing Committee.
Hsiao owns hotels and has other business interests in Shilin and Beitou, including the Grand View Resort Beitou Hotel. He also owns the Grand View Hotel in Changhua County’s Yuanlin City (員林市).
Hsiao has been accused of having ties to criminal gangs in Changhua County. He was elected as a legislator for one term from 2008 to 2012, despite a conviction for transporting a body in a case in which a police officer was killed.
He disclosed stocks and bank account deposits totaling NT$1.874 billion and more than 70 properties in 2011.
He is head of the KMT’s Changhua County Chapter and an executive member of the Taiwan Tourist Hotel Association.
Hsiao reportedly left Taiwan on a flight on Wednesday.
KMT officials said that he was on holiday and would respond to his summons on his return.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said that the KMT was negligent to “permit such a notorious figure to be involved in politics.”
DPP lawmakers on Dec. 5 proposed legislation to bar convicted criminals and gangsters from seeking public office, with Hsiao presented as an example of who should not be allowed to run.
“The KMT must end its double standard,” Su said. “It castigates other parties, saying they are tainted by ties to gangsters, even voicing support for the DPP’s proposal, but it continues to nominate convicted criminals and alleged gangsters for county speaker and deputy speaker offices.”
“Now the KMT has a Central Standing Committee member who is a wanted criminal embroiled in a vote-buying case,” he said. “I believe the public would not tolerate such a situation.”
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) put Taiwan in danger, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) said yesterday, hours after the de facto US embassy said that Beijing had misinterpreted World War II-era documents to isolate Taiwan. The AIT’s comments harmed the Republic of China’s (ROC) national interests and contradicted a part of the “six assurances” stipulating that the US would not change its official position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, Hsiao said. The “six assurances,” which were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982, say that Washington would not set a date for ending arm sales to Taiwan, consult
RSS