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."
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
GLOBAL ISSUE: If China annexes Taiwan, ‘it will not stop its expansion there, as it only becomes stronger and has more force to expand further,’ the president said China’s military and diplomatic expansion is not a sole issue for Taiwan, but one that risks world peace, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that Taiwan would stand with the alliance of democratic countries to preserve peace through deterrence. Lai made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). “China is strategically pushing forward to change the international order,” Lai said, adding that China established the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, launched the Belt and Road Initiative, and pushed for yuan internationalization, because it wants to replace the democratic rules-based international
RELEASED: Ko emerged from a courthouse before about 700 supporters, describing his year in custody as a period of ‘suffering’ and vowed to ‘not surrender’ Former Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was released on NT$70 million (US$2.29 million) bail yesterday, bringing an end to his year-long incommunicado detention as he awaits trial on corruption charges. Under the conditions set by the Taipei District Court on Friday, Ko must remain at a registered address, wear a GPS-enabled ankle monitor and is prohibited from leaving the country. He is also barred from contacting codefendants or witnesses. After Ko’s wife, Peggy Chen (陳佩琪), posted bail, Ko was transported from the Taipei Detention Center to the Taipei District Court at 12:20pm, where he was fitted with the tracking
RSS