Presidential election 2008: 9 days to go: None of the presidential candidates are British citizens, CEC confirms

The Central Election Commission (CEC) said yesterday that the British government had responded to its inquiry and confirmed that none of the candidates in the presidential election are British citizens.

"The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office has confirmed that there are no records to indicate that presidential candidates Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) or vice presidential candidates Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and Vicent Siew (蕭萬長) have been registered or naturalized as British citizens," a statement released by the CEC said.

CEC Secretary-General Teng Tien-yu (鄧天祐) said the commission received the information from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office at around noon yesterday.

In late January, the Democractic Progressive Party's (DPP) Hsieh accused his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) counterpart, of holding a US green card. In response, Ma said he once had a green card but it was invalidated in the mid-1980s when he traveled to the US on a visa.

Hsieh insists Ma's green card is still valid. Some members of the DPP and the party's supporters have speculated that Ma may be a US citizen.

To clarify the candidates' citizenship status, the CEC late last month made inquiries through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the governments of the US, Japan and the UK.

Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興) suggested last week that Ma may be a British citizen, as Ma was born in Hong Kong when it was a British colony. Ma's campaign said the allegation was laughable, but did not rule out legal action.