Reacting to what it called "discriminatory" crackdowns on vote-buying by investigators against the party, the KMT yesterday set up a 147-member legal-action group to protect the rights of its candidates.
In addition, the party formed another team -- consisting of 3,786 volunteers -- which will be responsible for reporting vote-buying practices involving other parties' candidates.
Chao Shou-po (趙守博), director-general of the KMT's Organization and Development Committee, said the actions are intended to prevent the DPP from abusing its power to interfere with the judiciary and to expose the "improper" campaign practices adopted by the ruling party.
"We want to check the judicial persecution imposed by the ruling authorities against our candidates," Chao said.
"And we want to rectify a phenomenon that has existed since the campaign started -- the phenomenon where the authorities have used their administrative resources to conduct discriminatory investigations into vote-buying," the KMT official added.
According to Chao, these authorities have ordered police to monitor almost every activity organized by groups affiliated with the KMT and in some cases they have even intercepted and searched tour buses transporting event participants.
But, Chao said, the DPP has not received the same harsh treatment when it held its own campaign activities and bussed in large numbers of supporters to its rallies.
He said the DPP, besides buying votes with promises, has treated people to a variety of tours in DPP-ruled localities.
"We feel it's very strange that the judicial authorities, probably under the instruction of the ruling party, have behaved as if they haven't seen anything," Chao said. "We will discover for them what they have failed to."
He said members of the KMT's anti-vote-buying team will videotape or photograph evidence of DPP electoral irregularities wherever they discover them and will file relevant charges with judicial authorities when necessary.
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