Soong camp says it has evidence of vote-buying tactics

Legislators from a pro-Soong alliance (超黨派聯盟) said yesterday that they had collected hard evidence of vote-buying activities across the country, without naming any particular party involved in the incidents.

Lawmakers Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) and Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄) told reporters yesterday that the alliance had received more than 100 telephone calls since it announced a hotline number Wednesday for the public to report cases of vote-buying.

Members of the alliance plan to send the information to the Bureau of Investigation, Chou said.

The lawmakers accused "a certain political party" of intensive vote-buying activities to boost the ratings of its candidate, who has so far been "trailing in third place," but the lawmakers did not mention the KMT by name.

Vote-buying is taking place in a variety of forms this year, including extravagant banquets, raffles, offers of cash ranging from NT$2,000 to NT$3,000 and free sight-seeing trips under various pretexts, the alliance said.

Some of the cash offers include an advance payment, along with promises of another payment after the March 18 election, the lawmakers said.

The alliance also said Sanchung City in Taipei County was one area where the most blatant vote-buying cases were taking place. Vote-buyers in Sanchung have reportedly been asking people to hand in their ID cards to be used by "dummy voters," the alliance said.