Authorities said they have made persistent efforts to crack down on election-related criminal activity in recent weeks, and have handled more than 1,000 cases of suspected vote-buying, campaign violence, underground gambling on poll results and other election-related violations across the nation.
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office yesterday said there have been reports of candidates resorting to illegal tactics by distributing smear campaign literature, along with vote-buying schemes in the run-up to Saturday’s presidential and legislative elections.
Prosecutor-General Yen Ta-ho (顏大和) said prosecutors and police are working to crack down on vote-buying and other violations, and that law enforcement agencies will promptly handle incidents of crowd violence.
Photo: Hung Mei-hsiu, Taipei Times
Supreme Prosecutors’ Office statistics indicated a total of 1,044 election violation cases, with charges against 1,797 suspects, as of Tuesday.
Among these, buying votes with cash or gifts by candidates accounted for 551 cases and 1,057 people charged, while election-related violence accounted for 69 cases and 83 suspects charged.
In their crackdown, authorities in Pingtung County raided 33 gambling operations yesterday and apprehended 27 people suspected of operating underground betting pools for wagering on election outcomes.
Photo: Liu Ching-hou, Taipei Times
Police in New Taipei City also reported a successful raid to bust the ringleaders and members of an illegal gambling operation using mobile phone apps for clients to place bets.
The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said the operation had taken NT$200 million (US$5.95 million) in wagers since its launch last year, and the raid on Tuesday rounded up seven suspects, and seized NT$10 million in the bank accounts of the ringleaders.
In another development yesterday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Hsinchu City legislative candidate Cheng Cheng-chien (鄭正鈐) led supporters in a protest outside a local police station in a dispute involving smear campaign literature.
Cheng said he led the protest because of police action the previous day to confiscate bundles of campaign literature, totaling 120,000 pamphlets, which were printed and financed by supporting groups.
However, Hsinchu Prosecutor Lin Li-chia (林李嘉) said his office had received complaints, and would investigate the case, as the pamphlets were deemed to contain distortions and sensational allegations against Cheng’s rival, Democratic Progressive Party candidate Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘).
The pamphlet had a photograph of Ker, with the main headline branding him as the “Underground Emperor of Hsinchu,” along with other descriptive epithets of Ker as the “Shadow Warrior-Gangster” (黑道影武者), “Manipulator of Justice System” (司法操弄者), “Despot of Hsinchu” (新竹鴨霸者) and the “legislature’s Shady Dealmaker” (國會喬事者).
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