The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday filed a lawsuit against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers Alex Tsai (蔡正元) and Alicia Wang (王育敏) and former legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) over their allegations that DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had speculated in real estate.
“In the past few days, Alex Tsai, Wang and Chiu have been making false accusations against Tsai Ing-wen with the intention of defaming her,” DPP spokesman Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎) told an afternoon news conference held outside the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. “We are filing a lawsuit claiming that they have violated Article 90 of the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法).”
Under the article, anyone convicted of “spreading a rumor or false saying by text, picture, audio tape, video tape, speech or other method for the purpose of making a candidate elected or not elected” can face up to five years in prison.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
Huang said the allegations the trio have made against Tsai Ing-wen are patently false, since their details about the number of plots of land, the size of the plots and the prices have all been incorrect.
Attorney Wellington Koo (顧立雄), one of the DPP’s legislator-at-large candidates, said the party would prefer to ignore the trio, but it needs to take legal action to prove the allegations are false.
“Alex Tsai and the other two are [making allegations] only because they need to prove their own existence, they need to attract attention,” Koo said. “However, it is not just the trio. The whole KMT is anxious about the lack of evidence.”
Comparing DPP Legislator Tuan Yi-kang’s (段宜康) criticism that KMT vice presidential candidate Jennifer Wang (王如玄) had also engaged in real-estate speculation, with the allegations against the DPP chairperson, Wang’s case is more problematic since military dependents’ housing units were built for disadvantaged people, Koo said.
Tuan has accused Wang of engaging in speculative sales of military dependents’ apartments, which were converted by the government from old housing for military dependents — and sold at a subsidized price — solely for the purpose of improving their living conditions.
By law, such apartments cannot be resold within five years of their original purchase.
Tuan has accused Wang of circumventing the law by making debt assumption transactions, in which the buyer makes a payment in cash or in a promissory note in exchange for future ownership of the property after the five-year waiting period.
“Tsai Ing-wen’s case is rather simple. She bought land 30 years ago and sold it nearly 20 years ago,” Koo said. “Yet the KMT trio has made false accusations based on wrong information about land size, plot numbers and selling prices.”
Koo said the DPP would continue to monitor the KMT’s moves and would take legal actions accordingly.
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