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Hualien candidate raided over `vote-buying' allegations

Hualien prosecutors raided People First Party (PFP) Hualien county commissioner candidate Fu Kun-chi's headquarters yesterday in connection with vote-buying allegations.

Earlier this week Hualien prosecutors applied for permission to detain three of Fu's supporters who had allegedly been vote buying, and have now taken the three into custody.

Prosecutor Lee Tzu-chun (李子春) led investigators in a raid on Fu's headquarters yesterday morning in Hualien City, seizing electoral rolls, but they didn't discover any cash.

Lee told local reporters "the evidence suggested that Fu's campaign members would probably intensify their vote-buying activities in the final hours before election day, so prosecutors were investigating the matter."

Fu yesterday denied the vote buying allegations, and said the raid would have a serious impact on his campaign.

Fu is competing with incumbent commissioner Hsieh Shen-shan (謝深山) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the Hualien commissioner's race.

Although various polls have indicated that Hsieh is leading, Fu still had a reasonable chance of winning the seat.

Meanwhile, a Nantou County Government building was raided on Thursday by prosecutors investigating alleged construction contract and vote-buying corruption involving commissioner Lin Tsung-nan (林宗男), who is standing for re-election as an independent candidate. After the raid, Lin was summoned for questioning by prosecutors.

Lin did not report to prosecutors on Thursday as scheduled, but he tearfully accused them of harassing him and colluding with his opponent, the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯), in order to help Tsai win today's election.

The head of the Nantou District Prosecutor's Office Shih Liang-po (施良波) said yesterday that Lin was under suspicion of using NT$1.6 billion (US$47.7 million) in funds -- which consists of fees for infrastructure repair damaged by flooding in July and central government's compensation for quarrying sand in the county -- as contracts and kickbacks for specific local politicians and construction companies in exchange for their support in his re-election bid.

Shih added that on Wednesday prosecutors discovered an excessive amount of cash at Lin's campaign office in Puli Township (埔里) which was allegedly vote-buying money.
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