Tainan prosecutors yesterday dropped charges of vote-buying against Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德), Tainan City Council Speaker Lee Chuan-chiao (李全教), former council speaker Lai Mei-hui (賴美惠) and a number of city councilors.
The Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office said that after completing its investigation into allegations of vote-buying relating to the election of the city council speaker and deputy speaker in December last year, it decided not to prosecute them due to insufficient evidence.
The decision puts an end to the litigious wrangling and political sparring that have paralyzed the Tainan City Council for most of the year.
Prosecutors said that investigators had questioned the defendants, examined their bank accounts and financial transactions, and talked to witnesses, but found no evidence that the officials had contravened the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法).
Lee, of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), was accused of offering several city councilors between NT$300,000 and NT$10 million (US$9,165 and US$305,530) — which was allegedly handled through intermediaries — to help him secure the speakership.
Saying they have evidence and witness testimonies that Lee and other KMT officials offered bribes in exchange for votes, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors filed a complaint with public prosecutors.
KMT councilors in turn accused the mayor, a DPP member, of attempting to buy votes in a failed bid to help Lai Mei-hui secure the speakership for a second term.
Lee won the speakership by three votes, 29 to 26, on Dec. 25 last year.
Prosecutors said that they have also dropped charges of vote-buying against Lee and independent Tainan City Councilor Yeh Chih-cheng (葉枝成) during the run-up to the local elections for councilors on Nov. 29 last year.
Following the prosecutors’ announcement, William Lai said: “Since the beginning, I have said a person of integrity can stand up to the test. These were groundless accusations against me. Now I hope the court can bring to justice those who were really engaged in vote-buying and prosecute them for the good of society.”
Lee called a press briefing and said that he had always conducted himself in a fair and professional manner in presiding over the city council to safeguard the welfare of Tainan residents.
While the speaker expressed hope that he could put all litigation behind him, he is not yet out of the woods. He is still facing three legal cases, including two civil lawsuits filed by prosecutors and a DPP councilor, seeking to nullify the results of his election as a city councilor due to alleged vote-buying.
If found guilty, it would also invalidate Lee’s eligibility as speaker.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift