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.
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