Taichung prosecutors yesterday indicted seven local government officials and members of a farmers' association on charges of manipulating the association's election.
Chen Hsiu-yu (陳秀玉), a candidate for members' representative of the farmers' association of Hoping Township, Taichung County, was persuaded to withdraw from the election in exchange for "certain benefits," the Taichung District Prosecutors' Office said.
Township-level farmers' associations nationwide held elections for member representatives on Feb. 15.
According to prosecutors, Chen had registered as a candidate for representative.
Her constituency, a local subdivision of the Hoping Township farmers' association, was to elect two representatives.
Apart from Chen there were already two candidates, Tseng Te-kang (
In a bid to ensure the election of Tseng and Hsieh, the farmers' association's chairman Chiou Wan-chung (
The indictment says that Chiou and Wu failed to persuade Chen at first, but the two then turned to town hall secretary Huang Yuan-yi (
Finally, Chen agreed to the conditions offered by Huang, including that the town hall and the farmers' association would build some facilities for the community and give a banquet to Chen's supporters and tell them that Chen withdrew without receiving any bribes, the prosecution said.
When the agreement was reached, the indictment says, the farmers' association officials removed Chen's census registration document from materials Chen had submitted when she registered as a candidate, rendering Chen's candidate registration invalid.
The prosecutors indicted Chiou, Wu, Huang, Tseng, Hsieh and two town hall officials, recommending that they be sentenced to a minimum of 10 months to up to one and a half years in prison.
Chen was not indicted, however. The prosecution said she had cooperated fully during the investigation.
Meanwhile, the Nantou (
The questioning was continuing as of yesterday evening.
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