Yesterday’s local elections produced dozens of indictments and detentions, as well as one incident of a mysterious ballot leaking out to the public ahead of election time.
In the day’s most bizarre occurrence, all three candidates in Hualien County’s Guangfu Township (光復鄉) ended up in detention after candidate Huang Rong-cheng (黃榮成) was taken into custody yesterday.
Until then, Huang had been the only candidate in the township who was not in detention. He and his two rivals for township chief, Chen Wen-kuang (陳文光) and Lin Yuan-jui (林元瑞), were charged with vote-buying.
All three candidates were from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Hualien District Court on Thursday set bail for Huang at NT$100,000. However, Hualien district prosecutors later filed an appeal offering additional findings. As a result, all three candidates were detained.
Meanwhile, the wife of the KMT candidate for Chiayi County commissioner Wong Chung-chun (翁重鈞) committed a violation of the Election and Recall Act (選舉罷免法) yesterday when she showed up at the polls wearing a jacket bearing a “2” sticker. Wong Chang Tzong-mei (翁張宗美) said it was an accident and immediately removed the sticker when reporters pointed it out to her.
On Friday night, a homeless person sorting through trash found an empty ballot for the county councilor election in Jhudong Township (竹東), Hsinchu County. Initial reports said the ballot was handed to another person, who reported the incident to the local election commission.
After learning that a ballot may have leaked out, the local election commission immediately called together dozens of workers, who counted all the ballots into the early hours of yesterday morning. As no ballots were found to be missing, and an initial investigation determined that the mysterious ballot was authentic, Hsinchu District prosecutors were still probing the incident to determine where the extra ballot came from and how it leaked out.
The Ministry of Justice yesterday released its latest figures on cases of election-related bribery and intimidation under investigation by local prosecutors.
Figures showed that as of Friday night, 79 people had been indicted in 54 cases across the country.
A total of 4,298 cases have been reported and authorities had opened investigations into 2,426.
In the mayor and county commissioner elections, police have investigated 200 allegations of vote-buying and five allegations of election-related violence.
In the city and county councilor elections, 1,339 bribery cases have been investigated, while 61 cases of election-related violence had been probed.
Also as of Friday night, for township chief elections, 802 allegations of bribery were under investigation and 19 allegations of violence had been made.
Thirty-eight KMT candidates and their supporters have been detained, against 14 for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its supporters.
Detainees with no political affiliation or unclear party membership numbered 95.
Twenty-four KMT candidates and supporters and two DPP candidates have been indicted, while 39 with no political affiliation or unclear party membership have been indicted.
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Monday announced light shows and themed traffic lights to welcome fans of South Korean pop group Twice to the port city. The group is to play Kaohsiung on Saturday as part of its “This Is For” world tour. It would be the group’s first performance in Taiwan since its debut 10 years ago. The all-female group consists of five South Koreans, three Japanese and Tainan’s Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the first Taiwan-born and raised member of a South Korean girl group. To promote the group’s arrival, the city has been holding a series of events, including a pop-up
TEMPORAL/SPIRITUAL: Beijing’s claim that the next Buddhist leader must come from China is a heavy-handed political maneuver that will fall flat-faced, experts said China’s requirement that the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation to be born in China and approved by Beijing has drawn criticism, with experts at a forum in Taipei yesterday saying that if Beijing were to put forth its own Dalai Lama, the person would not be recognized by the Tibetan Buddhist community. The experts made a remarks at the two-day forum hosted by the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama titled: “The Snow Land Forum: Finding Common Ground on Tibet.” China says it has the right to determine the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, as it claims sovereignty over Tibet since ancient times,
Temperatures in some parts of Taiwan are expected to fall sharply to lows of 15°C later this week as seasonal northeasterly winds strengthen, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. It is to be the strongest cold wave to affect northern Taiwan this autumn, while Chiayi County in the southwest and some parts of central Taiwan are likely to also see lower temperatures due to radiational cooling, which occurs under conditions of clear skies, light winds and dry weather, the CWA said. Across Taiwan, temperatures are to fall gradually this week, dropping to 15°C to 16°C in the early hours of Wednesday
RSS