With only days to go before the legislative elections, members of the pan-blue alliance feuded yesterday over the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) recently announced vote-allocation plans.
As the KMT released more information about its allocation strategies yesterday, legislative candidates from both the People First Party (PFP) and the New Party criticized the KMT as untrustworthy and domineering.
One day after the KMT announced its vote-allocation strategies for candidates in 10 counties and cities, the party's Organization and Development Committee director Liao Feng-teh (廖風德) held a press conference to outline the strategy for the north and south districts of Taipei and Kaohsiung.
In Taipei's south and north constituencies, the KMT is using a "four seasons" strategy to back four KMT and New Party candidates in each district, Liao said.
While urging decided voters to stick to their original plans, Liao called on pan-blue supporters who born between January and March to vote for KMT candidate Alex Tsai (
He said voters born between April and June should vote for Legislator John Chang (章孝嚴) in the north, and for Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛) in the south, while those born between July and September should vote for Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) in Taipei's first constituency and for Justin Chou (周守訓) in the second.
Those voters born between October and December are being urged to cast their votes for the New Party's Alex Fei (費鴻泰), and for Apollo Chen (陳學勝) in the second constituency.
In Kaohsiung's north district votes for different candidates are being split up by geographical location, Liao said.
He said that the strategy for Taipei County's first voting district is still being devised.
Vote-allocation strategies have been the center of attention in recent days in the pan-blue camp, with the PFP announcing on Monday that it will use such a strategy in Taipei County's first district.
During a flurry of instructions to voters, New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明) emphasized yesterday that the KMT's vote strategy was only meant to give undecided pan-blue supporters some direction on how to vote.
"The main point is to first consolidate the votes that you already have [for each candidate], and then to boost the number of votes [for the parties] in general," Yok said.
Yok, who said earlier in the campaign that the New Party would not participate in any allocation strategies with the KMT, called on pan-blue voters who have made up their minds to stick to their guns.
He said he was worried that the allocation strategies were confusing voters and he said he had heard complaints from candidates about their supporters being confused about how to vote.
Meanwhile, several PFP and New Party candidates and their supporters expressed unhappiness with the voting strategies yesterday.
"The KMT is seeking to oppress the PFP's chances," said PFP Legislator Sheu Yuan-kuo pan-blue (
Sheu held a brief protest outside of the KMT's headquarters last week when it was leaked to reporters that the party had asked the PFP to stop supporting Sheu in this election.
Sheu is running for reelection in Taipei's north district. He has not been included in the KMT's vote allocation strategy.
Meanwhile, New Party candidate Coco Chen (
She said there is enough pan-blue support in Taichung for votes to be allocated to her.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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