Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member and political pundit Luo You-zhi (羅友志) on Monday accused New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) of trying to bribe him in exchange for not seeking the party’s nomination in the 2014 local elections.
Luo wrote on Facebook that he entered the KMT’s primary for a councilor seat in New Taipei City’s seventh electoral district in 2014, when Hou was deputy mayor.
“Hou called me for a meeting. He told me: ‘Brother, I am in charge of candidate nomination [for the city]. You should not run in this district... You should run in Sijhih District (汐止). We will pay you NT$5 million [US$163,967 at the current exchange rate],” Luo wrote.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
“I learned that if I ran as a KMT candidate, my support base would have affected another candidate favored by the party’s top officials, and it would have disrupted the KMT’s nomination and election plans for New Taipei City,” he added.
Luo said he did not accept Hou’s offer and the KMT did not nominate him.
He eventually ran as an independent, but lost.
Luo accused Hou of conducting so inn a teng (搓圓仔湯, “kneading to make rice ball soup”), a Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) term that often refers to political schemes involving coaxing a candidate to drop out of a race by offering money.
“Taiwan guarantees free speech and is also a democratic country,” Hou said yesterday.
New Taipei City Councilor Ho Po-wen (何博文) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) filed a judicial complaint regarding Luo’s accusations, while a group of DPP lawmakers asked prosecutors to investigate the claim.
Hou has been accused of “seriously harming our democratic system,” Ho said.
“We are concerned, because Hou is seeking the KMT’s presidential nomimation. Will he make secret deals to give up the interests of Taiwanese and trade away our nation’s future?” Ho asked.
Ho pointed to Article 97 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), which states: “Anyone who makes a candidate or a person qualified for a candidate agree to abandon the campaign or to perform certain campaign activities by asking for expected promises or delivering bribes or other undue benefits” could be punished with a prison sentence of three to 10 years and a fine of up to NT$20 million.
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