Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential hopeful Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) campaign said it planned to sue noted advertising professional Jerry Fan (范可欽) over comments he made on a late-night talk show.
Fan told the TVBS news program News Night Club (新聞夜總會) on Monday that Su’s campaign phoned to thank people close to Shih Ming-teh (施明德) after Shih started a media controversy over Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) sexual orientation last week.
“People within Su’s campaign office phoned insiders close to Shih to express gratitude for the former DPP chairperson’s [Shih’s] help,” said Fan, a former DPP image consultant that later spoke for Shih’s 2006 “Red Shirt” movement.
The allegations come at a sensitive time for Su, with days left before the official telephone polls begin on Monday. The two DPP frontrunners have been seeking to avoid accusations of internal party bickering.
Su’s campaign, in a statement released late on Tuesday night, denied Fan’s accusations and called them “malicious rumors” that undermined the DPP candidate’s reputation.
“It’s definitely not the truth and has seriously impacted on Su’s personal reputation. It’s misleading for society in every sense,” the statement said. Lawyers have already been asked to file a lawsuit against Fan on the campaign’s behalf, it added.
Responding to that charge, Fan said his comments were backed up by facts, including records of the alleged telephone call in question. He called the lawsuit an election maneuver that Su should “reconsider.”
“If he wants to sue, we will meet in court,” Fan was quoted as saying by the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper).
In other developments, DPP spokesperson Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) said yesterday that the party might announce its presidential nominee as early as Wednesday, two days sooner than originally expected.
The official telephone polls used to decide on the nominee could finish much sooner than the deadline of April 29, Lin said, and the results of the five surveys could be released the day after their completion.
“We will choose five of seven polling companies to engage in the surveys. We expect them to be finished within two days,” Lin said. “The day after, we will open up the poll results and calculate [the winner].”
Each of the five polling companies will poll 3,000 people nationwide, the results of which will be averaged to determine the percentage of support for each candidate against President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
Under party regulations, candidates will be asked to not air any further election advertisements or hold media interviews starting tomorrow.
“We are also asking the media not to engage in any further polls … in order to avoid skewing the final result,” Lin said.
Tsai and Su are battling head-to-head in the polls, which observers say is still too close to call. The winner of the official telephone polls will be confirmed on May 4.
The party also expects to wrap up its legislative nominations by May 15, with another round of nominees expected to be published on April 30.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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