The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Taipei chapter late last night apologized to independent mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and the public for the uproar over a photograph of a document that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) posted on Facebook earlier in the day to back claims of Ko’s affiliation with the DPP.
Tsai, who serves as Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien’s (連勝文) campaign director, said the document had been sent by the DPP to Ko, asking that Ko’s office nominate supervisors to monitor voting boxes on election day.
The document showed that the DPP referred to Tsai as: “Our party’s Taipei mayoral candidate” and “the party’s nominated candidate,” Tsai said, intimating that this negated Ko’s non-partisanship status.
Tsai said that he had obtained the document from the DPP’s headquarters in Taipei, adding that the DPP could take him to court if the document was a fake.
Earlier in the day, several DPP members — including Deputy Secretary-General Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) and Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) — were quick to criticize Tsai over the posting, according to reports on the Chinese-language Web site ETtoday.
Chiu said Tsai should provide the original of the document and cite his sources, hinting that the KMT legislator was trying to smear Ko, the ETtoday reports said.
Chiu said the phrasing in the photographed document differed from documents that party had sent to Ko’s office in the past, the Web site said.
When Ko visited Zhuzihu (竹子湖) on Yangmingshan (陽明山), ETtoday’s report said journalists asked him what he thought about Tsai’s Facebook posting.
Ko said that he would “thank Tsai later after the election,” the report said.
However, about 10:25pm last night, the DPP’s Taipei chapter issued a press release to say that the document in question had come from its office.
The party said that an employee had copied a format that had been used in the past and failed to double-check the wording.
The DPP apologized for any confusion created by the document.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan
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