The Pingtung District Court on Monday handed down guilty verdicts with prison terms to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chien Tung-ming (簡東明), also known by his Paiwan name, Uliw Qaljupayare, and 158 other people on charges of vote buying and accepting money in exchange for votes.
It was one of the nation’s largest ever investigations into vote buying in the run-up to the presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 16 last year.
The court ruled that Chien, campaign staff and other KMT officials had bought votes from Aboriginal residents in Pingtung County, paying from NT$1,500 to NT$3,000 per vote, a breach of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法).
Photo: Lee Li-fa, Taipei Times
Chien, 66, was given a prison term of five years, six months and deprived of his civil rights for six years.
Besides Chien, 158 defendants were found guilty in Monday’s first ruling, which can be appealed.
Six officials at the KMT’s Pingtung branch office were convicted and given prison terms ranging from four years and two months to three years and six months.
The remaining defendants were Chien’s campaign office staff charged with acting as vote brokers for Chien’s camp and the KMT, and local Aboriginal residents who took money in exchange for promising to vote for Chien.
Chien lost his legislative seat on Monday when the guilty verdict was announced by the court, Ministry of the Interior officials at the Civil Affairs Bureau said.
However, Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) last night said that according to an amendment to election regulations, Chien would be suspected from his duties and rights as a legislator, but would retain his title of legislator.
Su said he would check with the legislature’s legal department to verify the law regarding the case.
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
MORE FALL: An investigation into one of Xi’s key cronies, part of a broader ‘anti-corruption’ drive, indicates that he might have a deep distrust in the military, an expert said China’s latest military purge underscores systemic risks in its shift from collective leadership to sole rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and could disrupt its chain of command and military capabilities, a national security official said yesterday. If decisionmaking within the Chinese Communist Party has become “irrational” under one-man rule, the Taiwan Strait and the regional situation must be approached with extreme caution, given unforeseen risks, they added. The anonymous official made the remarks as China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli (劉振立) were reportedly being investigated for suspected “serious
RSS