The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) warned the public yesterday to watch out for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) "dirty tricks" in the final days before Saturday's legislative elections, saying that vote buying was a major concern.
DPP Legislator Shen Fa-hui (
Shen said statistics showed that among the 73 constituencies nationwide, KMT candidates in more than 40 were involved in vote-buying allegations and had either been questioned or held in custody.
DPP Secretary-General Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) dismissed KMT criticism that President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) planned visit today to the site of the 2004 election-eve assassination attempt in Tainan was a "dirty trick."
"Only those who have `dirty tricks' in mind play `dirty tricks,'" he said.
Cho said that as no other political party can rival the KMT's ability to play "dirty tricks," he called on the Central Election Commission to examine the authenticity of the signatures the KMT collected for the two referendums the party has initiated.
In addition to vote buying, the DPP made public 15 other "dirty tricks" the KMT had used so far, adding that they would continue to disclose them in the run-up to the elections this weekend.
The first category was "fabrication," the party said. Incidents included Ma Ying-jeou's (
A more recent example was the inclusion, without her consent, of a New York-based businesswoman on the list of Ma's New York support group.
The second category was the "perpetrator crying for help." One example was Chen's disclosure of death threats made against him and his family. Although the KMT questioned the veracity of the threats, they turned out to have been true.
The third trick was to "inflict injury upon itself [KMT] to win the confidence of the enemy." One example was Ma claiming that he was once "blacklisted" under KMT rule. He later said he was not sure whether he had ever blacklisted.
Another scheme was to "burn bridges after crossing them."
While Ma praised former DPP chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) when the two met last year, this year he declined to endorse amendments to the Referendum Law (公投法) proposed by Lin and a political pressure group of which he is a member.
Other tricks included "a cicada casting off its skin" and "killing the chicken to scare the monkey."
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