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Yunlin raft owner may be penalized for overloading campaign boatride for Ma

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou, sixth left, takes a raft trip along the coast while visiting oyster farmers in Yunlin County during one of his campaign stops last week. The owner of the raft, which has a legal maximum load of six people, may be fined. PHOTO: CHEN TSAN-KUN, TAIPEI TIMES

A raft owner could be fined for overloading after he took Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and local political figures for a ride last week.

Ma took a ride last week along the coast while visiting oyster farmers in Yunlin County during one of his campaign stops.

However, local media stations such as CTI-TV and ETTV reported yesterday that a raft owner might be fined NT$150,000 for taking on 19 people, including Ma and local political figures, when the legal maximum load is six people.

Yunlin County KMT Legislator Hsu Shu-po (許舒博), who helped organize the trip, admitted that the raft was overloaded but said that Mawasn't aware of the limit.

"Local party members arranged the whole trip, [former KMT] chairman Ma didn't know anything about it ... he didn't know how many people were allowed on the raft," Hsu told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday.

Hsu said the original plan was to have 30 people traveling with Ma take five rafts, "so we'd have six people on each raft."

However, all local political figures wanted to be on the same raft as Ma, "so we ended up using only three rafts, leaving two rafts empty," he said.

Although members of the Coast Guard had warned that overloading the raft might be illegal, no one listened, Hsu said.

"I admit we made a mistake,"Hsu said.

"Our local party chapter will take care of the ticket when they receive it," he said.
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