Prosecutors have arrested 3,509 vote captains suspected of involvement in bribery cases related to today's elections, Min-ister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) said yesterday. Officials have already indicted 106 vote captains.
The minister cited the figures as he released the latest official statistics on vote-buying yesterday.
He said that 2,672 cases of possible vote-buying specifically for today's legislative elections were being investigated. Ninety-two of the 106 indicted vote captains worked for candidates during the legislative campaigns.
Prosecutors are also investigating 813 cases of suspected vote-buying for the mayoral and county commissioner elections. They have indicted 14 suspects so far that are involved in eight cases.
"I think the government's determination to stamp out bribery during the elections is quite clear," Chen said. "The anti-vote-buying campaign this year has been the most successful one of the past few years.
"Unfortunately, however, there are still candidates who are trying to secure election success by buying votes."
The Ministry of Justice's head prosecutor, David Horng (洪光火宣), confirmed in an interview with the Taipei Times that three incumbent lawmakers have been indicted on charges of vote-buying.
They are the DPP's Hsu Chih-ming (
Hsu was indicted on Nov. 22 while Hsiao and Wang were indicted on Tuesday.
Chen also defended the impartiality of investigators.
"Believe it or not," he said, "a lot of candidates or their campaign workers have called me every day to complain about our `overly strict' anti-vote-buying measures. Some of them even complained that our investigators singled out certain political parties or candidates."
But Chen said statistics prove critics wrong. "We have suspects from different parties, including independents. Who they are or which party they belong to has never been a concern to our investigators."
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to