The KMT announced yesterday that it had filed a criminal lawsuit against independent presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜) for embezzlement and forgery while serving as a high-ranking party official.
A senior KMT official yesterday said the lawsuit is part of a dual strategy aimed at limiting Soong's chances of winning the March 18 election, while the party's propaganda machine prepared to make a "soft" appeal to veterans' families to "return" to the KMT.
Party officials announced the lawsuit during a news conference at KMT headquarters yesterday following the weekly central standing committee meeting.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES.
"The incident is a judicial issue, not a political matter and therefore the public should see the case being pursued through a judicial approach,'' said KMT spokesperson Huang Hwei-chen (黃輝珍).
When asked by reporters whether President and KMT chairman Lee Teng-hui (
"Even though Lee himself won't make an appearance in court, if necessary he could write a statement to the court or else delegate KMT officials to attend the court session," Huang said.
According to Chang Nai-liang (
The KMT also accused Soong's sister-in-law, Chen Pi-yun (
Another of the KMT's lawyers for the case said that after the courts handle the criminal charges the ruling party would file a civil suit to try to recover the money it says Soong stole.
A resolution by KMT headquarters, Huang said, is that the party will give the money to charity.
Spokesmen for Soong, how-ever, said they planned to file a countersuit against the KMT for bringing fabricated charges and for deliberately attempting to prevent Soong from being elected as the next president.
While the KMT strongly denies Soong's claim that he and Lee had established a "trust" to handle party money -- the candidate's staff claims to have evidence to prove Soong's innocence.
Hours after the lawsuit was filed, a team of defense lawyers told reporters that the KMT did not have a case.
Soong's attorneys said that Lee approved the transfer of funds for party operations and Soong never embezzled the money.
``We challenge Lee to take a lie-detector test,'' Soong spokesman Liao Wen-chang (
In addition to the seesawing legal drama yesterday, high-ranking KMT officials targeted veterans groups across Taiwan, urging them to abandon Soong in order to save KMT candidate Lien Chan (3s戰).
"The most crucial significance of the unusual financial dealings with the Chung Hsing Bills Finance Corp accounts is that the scandal has damaged Soong, changing him from the most likely winner to the most hopeless loser,'' said Chen Kang-chin (3祟高?, head of the KMT's Taiwan provincial affairs department.
"Soong still has the ability to upset the KMT's dynasty, but lacks the possibility of winning the presidential race on his own," Chen added.
Chen said the KMT would spare no effort to court the families of military veterans -- many of whom are believed to support Soong -- into switching to Lien.
He said the campaign landscape would then become a pitched battle between Lien and the DPP's candidate, Chen Shui-bian (
Further highlighting its strategy, the KMT has already launched a series of negative television ads claiming that Chen has repeatedly changed his stance on many issues thoughout his political career and therefore lacks both stability and credibility.
The KMT's Chen said rural areas are the final bastion of support for the KMT regime.
"Our largest support base lies in Taiwan province, rather than the capital of Taipei," he said.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS