The crackdown on vote-buying has been effective, as the number of campaign-related banquets has fallen by 90 percent and there have been more than 10 vote-buying prosecutions, Premier Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday.
"I'm very pleased with the crackdown efforts so far," Yu said. "With sound task designation and cooperation, prosecutors with pan-blue leanings are responsible for conducting the investigation of pan-green legislative candidates, while prosecutors with pan-green leanings are responsible for investigating pan-blue candidates."
Yu made the remarks while campaigning for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidates in Tainan County.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus whip Huang Teh-fu (
"I'm calling on prosecutors and law enforcement officials to maintain their impartiality and refuse to serve as the DPP's political hitmen," Huang said.
"Although the government has claimed that its crackdown efforts don't have anything to do with a candidate's political affiliation, we have found many problems and heard many negative reports," he said.
Citing "reliable sources," hesaid that prosecutors and law-enforcement officials have targeted as many as 14 KMT candidates for a large-scale search ahead of the election.
The search areas include the counties of Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung, Chunghua, Yunlin, Tainan and Kaohsiung, he said.
Dismissing the accusations, DPP Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (
"If the DPP had the ability to interfere in any such legal cases, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) wouldn't have been called to testify in front of the Hualien Prosecutor's Office for two hours and former DPP deputy secretary-general You Ying-lung (游盈隆) wouldn't have been indicted,'" Chang said.
Yu was indicted for violating the Public Officials Election and Recall Law (公職人員選罷法) because of a statement he made during the Hualien County commissioner by-election last year.
The indictment was later dismissed by State Public Prosecutor-General Wu Ying-chao (吳英昭) and the Hualien Prosecutors' Office.
Chang admitted that some DPP candidates have come under suspicion of vote buying and have been summoned by prosecutors. But he noted that none have been linked to cash bribes.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods