President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) should be fined NT$500,000 in his capacity as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman for citing opinion polls within 10 days of an election, the Yilan County Election Commission monitoring committee said yesterday.
The committee submitted its suggestion to the commission yesterday, which will make a decision today.
Article 53 of the Election and Recall Act (選舉罷免法) prohibits individuals and political parties from reporting, publishing, commenting on or quoting the results of opinion polls in the 10 days before an election.
On Nov. 25, speaking at a KMT Central Standing Committee meeting in Yilan County, Ma cited an opinion poll as indicating that the race in Yilan would be tight and party members should step up campaign efforts. The next day, the KMT apologized on behalf of Ma and said he was not trying to influence the election.
KMT Secretary-General Chan Chun-po (詹春柏) said Ma had not realized that there were less than 10 days until the election. Chan also said Ma did not break the law because his comments were made at a KMT meeting, not a public event.
When asked for comment yesterday, KMT Spokesman Lee Chien-jung (李建榮) said the party would respect and accept the commission’s decision.
In other news, Hualien District prosecutors yesterday said they had solid evidence that a candidate who won a township chief election bought votes and would therefore seek to have his election annulled.
Huang Rong-cheng (黃榮成) of the KMT won in Guangfu Township (光復).
Prosecutors said they were writing a petition to have Huang’s victory annulled and would produce an indictment as soon as possible.
Although Huang won the election, he was taken into custody on Saturday over vote-buying allegations. Until then, Huang had been the only candidate in the township who was not in detention. His two rivals for township chief, Chen Wen-kuang (陳文光) and Lin Yuan-jui (林元瑞), also of the KMT, are also being detained on suspicion of vote-buying.
Prosecutors had sought to detain Huang on Thursday, but the court allowed him to go free on bail of NT$100,000. The prosecutors later appealed, presenting additional evidence, and received permission to detain Huang on the day of the election.
SILENCING CRITICS: In addition to blocking Taiwan, China aimed to prevent rights activists from speaking out against authoritarian states, a Cabinet department said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned transnational repression by Beijing after RightsCon, a major digital human rights conference scheduled to be held in Zambia this week, was abruptly canceled due to Chinese pressure over Taiwanese participation. This year’s RightsCon, the world’s largest conference discussing issues “at the intersection of human rights and technology,” was scheduled to take place from tomorrow to Friday in Lusaka, and expected to draw 2,600 in-person attendees from 150 countries, along with 1,100 online participants. However, organizers were forced to cancel the event due to behind-the-scenes pressure from China, the ministry said, expressing its “strongest condemnation”
DELAYED BUT DETERMINED: The president’s visit highlights Taiwan’s right to international engagement amid regional pressure from China President Willaim Lai (賴清德) yesterday arrived in Eswatini, more than a week after his planned visit to Taiwan’s sole African ally was suspended because of revoked overflight permits. “The visit, originally scheduled for April 22, was postponed due to unforeseen external factors,” Lai wrote on social media. “After several days of careful arrangements by our diplomatic and national security teams, we successfully arrived today.” Lai said he looked forward to further deepening Taiwan-Eswatini relations through closer cooperation in the economy, agriculture, culture and education, as well as advancing the nation’s international partnerships. The president was initially scheduled to arrive in time to celebrate
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) yesterday said the US faced a choice between an “impossible” military operation or a “bad deal” with Tehran, after US President Donald Trump disparaged Iran’s latest peace proposal. Negotiations between the two countries have been deadlocked since a ceasefire came into effect on April 8, with only one round of direct peace talks held so far. Iran’s Tasnim and Fars news agencies reported that Tehran had submitted a 14-point proposal to mediator Pakistan, but Trump was quick to cast doubt on it. “I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us, but
A group affiliated with indicted Chinese immigrant Xu Chunying (徐春鶯) is to be dissolved for monitoring Chinese immigrants in Taiwan, a source said yesterday. Xu, the secretary-general of the Cross-Strait Marriage and Family Service Alliance, was indicted on March 24 on charges of violating the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法). The alliance “illegally monitored" Chinese immigrants living in Taiwan on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Ministry of the Interior is expected to dissolve the organization in the coming days under provisions of the Civil Associations Act (人民團體法), the source said. Xu, who married a Taiwanese in 1993 and became a Republic
RSS