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Chiu will be disqualified from legislative election: CEC

Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairman Chang Cheng-hsiung (張政雄) said yesterday that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) would be disqualified from running in the year-end legislative election after the Supreme Court handed down a final ruling on his jail sentence for public disturbance.

Chang said that those who wish to run in legislative elections have to meet certain qualifications and that Chiu is not expected to have served out his sentence by the time the elections are held in December.

Chang also said that if the KMT wished to nominate Chiu as its at-large legislative candidate, the CEC would convene a meeting to discuss whether he was qualified to run.

Later yesterday, CEC spokesman Teng Tien-you (鄧天祐) said that Chiu would be ineligible to register to run for public office in the next round of legislative elections even if he were released early on parole in accordance with the Public Officials Election and Recall Law (公職人員選舉罷免法).

Convictions carrying prison sentences prohibit offenders from running for public office until their sentences are completed or they receive a special pardon, Teng said, adding that a parole is part of a sentence.

Chiu, who last year exposed first lady Wu Shu-jen's (吳淑珍) suspected involvement in the misuse of President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) "state affairs" fund, leading to her indictment last November, claimed on Thursday that the sentence was politically motivated and aimed to silence him before he could expose further government irregularities.

Nevertheless, Chiu said he has accepted the verdict and is preparing to serve his time in prison, his assistant said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Chiu has not decided whether to run in the legislative election in December, his assistant said.
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