Raid on Aboriginal DPP candidate was `staged': official

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday accused Taitung prosecutors of interfering with the legislative elections in carrying out a raid on the headquarters of DPP Aboriginal legislative candidate Chen Ying (陳瑩).

"[The raid] was staged for the media," DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) said. "TV reporters were at the scene before prosecutors began the raid. So who alerted them? Isn't there such a thing as a `gag order?'"

Defending the raid on Chen's Taitung City headquarters on Thursday night, Taitung District Prosecutors' Office spokeswoman Hsueh Yueh-yi (薛樂儀) said her colleagues were investigating the case according to standard practice.

Chen, a Puyuma Aborigine, is the daughter of Council of Indigenous Peoples Chairman Chen Chien-nien (陳建年), a former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) county commissioner for Taitung. She has been campaigning for the DPP for one of four legislative seats reserved for plains Aborigines.

Chen is the only Puyuma candidate in the race, and is thought to have a fair chance of becoming the first Aboriginal DPP candidate to be directly elected to the legislature. In recent days her credibility has come under attack from People First Party caucus whip Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄), who accused her of misusing government resources through her father's connections, inexperience and being unable to speak the Puyuma language.

Taitung Chief Prosecutor Chiang Wen-chun (江文君) and prosecutors Yang Ta-chih (楊大智), Wang Chuan-chung (王全中) and Wang Pei-chih (王培基) on Thursday night raided Chen Ying's campaign headquarters and Chen Chien-nien's residence in Taipei after receiving tip-offs from anonymous sources alleging that Chen Ying's campaign team had been buying votes.