Both the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday called on voters to be on the lookout for "dirty tricks" played by their rival camps in the run-up to Saturday's presidential election.
The KMT yesterday listed possible election tactics from the DPP and urged voters not to forget the "319 shooting incident" of 2004.
KMT Secretary-General Wu Den-yi (
PHOTO: TANG SHIH-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
Wu also urged the government not to raise tensions across the Taiwan Strait and use it as an election tactic.
KMT CLAIMS
"As the presidential election approaches, the National Security Bureau should be on high alert and protect all candidates, so the shadow of the 319 incident will be gone," Wu told a press conference at the KMT headquarters.
The pan-blue camp accused the DPP of staging the shooting in order to win the 2004 election, saying the incident was "self-directed and self-acted."
Wu said DPP election tactics also included spreading rumors about the KMT bribing voters, exacerbating cross-strait tensions, or even fabricating sexual scandals or affairs to attack Ma.
Wu said a woman once suggested that KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
DPP RESPONSE
Meanwhile, DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (
DPP Legislator Yeh Yi-ching (
She said the DPP camp had come up with a list of five "dirty tricks" the KMT has played so far.
First, Yeh said, the KMT spread fabricated information about a planned assassination of Ma to create social panic and seek voters' sympathy.
Second, she said, the DPP suspected the Ma campaign offices in Yunlin, Chiayi and Nantou counties of buying votes because they had paid people an exorbitant amount of money to distribute campaign pamphlets.
Third, the KMT manipulates the bidding on the presidential election to create a bandwagon effect, Yeh said, claiming that the KMT camp also creates stock market rumors to provoke small investors to sell off their stocks in a panic.
Finally, she said the KMT exposed their scandals and blamed it on the DPP.
Yeh said she hoped voters would see the KMT's tricks clearly and use their wisdom to make sound judgement.
"The DPP will not use the KMT's dirty tricks," she said. "We are asking national security, investigators and prosecutors to do their job and maintain social stability."
Hsieh spokesman Shen Fa-hui (
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods