With only three weeks to go before the voters head to the polls, the war of words between the two major contenders in Taipei has become firmly fixed on allegations of telephone tapping at an office of independent candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
After a campaign rally yesterday, Ko called for an end to speculation over who was responsible for the cables supposedly used for to tap some of his campaign office phone lines that were discovered late on Tuesday.
The dust-up between Ko’s camp and that of Chinese Nationalist Party (KTM) rival Sean Lien (連勝文), began after Lien’s campaign office director released what he said was Ko’s plans for a city hall management team on Tuesday.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Ko says the matter should be left to the police, who are investigating the allegations of phone-tapping.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) said that staff member have turned over “evidence” to police and he is confident they will get to the bottom of who was behind the alleged devices.
KMT Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元), Lien’s executive campaign director has blamed the Ko camp for executing what he called a “standard framing incident,” but doing it clumsily. The office originally said there were recording devices, but later said there were only “suspicious” phone cables after police arrived, Tsai said.
A private telecommunications operator had checked the switchboard on Tuesday, but did not find any such cables, Tsai said.
There were three “suspects” in Ko’s camp who might have been behind the placement to spur sympathy for Ko, he said.
Ko’s campaign staff said they had no reason to try a sympathy ploy because their candidate has been leading in opinion polls.
Police said they are continuing their investigation. However, so far they have found that some of the cables seized from the office were not used for wiretapping.
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