Sun, Oct 21, 2018 page3

• ELECTION: Ko campaign fined for parking ‘headquarters’ in park

  • By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
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  Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) campaign held its first large-scale public event in Qixing Park (七星公園) in Beitou District (北投) yesterday, but the municipality fined Ko’s campaign office for illegally parking his “mobile campaign headquarters” — a stage truck — in the park.

  The event was described as a “fun fair,” after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei mayoral candidate Pasuya Yao (姚文智) protested that the Taipei Parks and Street Lights Office had rejected their applications to hold campaign events in public parks.

  The parks office gave the campaign a ticket at 9am when the stage truck drove into the park to prepare the main stage for the afternoon event and continued issuing fines every two hours until the event ended in the evening, for a total fine of NT$14,400.

  

  People look on as a member of Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s campaign staff takes the stage during an election event in Taipei yesterday.

  Photo: CNA

  “Ko values the key principles of ‘respect professionals, perform administrative duties according to the law, and be open and transparent,’ so the campaign office will respect the office’s penalties and pay the fines according to the law,” Ko campaign spokesman Tsai Chun-wei (蔡峻維) said.

  Asked to comment upon his arrival to the park at about 4pm, Ko said he was astonished, as the campaign office had applied for permission in advance and thought it was acting legally.

  If the truck is determined to have parked illegally, the campaign would make improvements and find a legal place to park the truck next time, he said.

  Although Ko in his speech urged attendees not to wear campaign vests, hold campaign flags or chant dong suan (凍蒜, “get elected” in Hoklo, commonly known as Taiwanese), the parks office later nevertheless deemed the event an “election campaign event,” which means it violated municipal rules for venue use.

  Yangmingshan National Park Headquarters director Lin Chao-chia (林晁嘉) said that the parks office would confiscate the NT$30,000 paid as guarantee, as Ko had repeatedly chanted his 2014 election campaign slogan during his public speech.

  Ko said he still held on to his 2014 campaign slogan that “changing Taiwan begins in the capital, and changing Taipei begins with culture,” and saw the election process as a cultural-social movement aimed at changing political culture in Taiwan.

  He also cited data while giving examples of his administrative performance over nearly four years and thanked his supporters for giving him the courage to continue doing what he believes is good for the public.

  The “fun fair” began at 1pm, with performances by Beitou local groups, speeches by municipal officials, city councilors and Ko’s parents, and more than a dozen booths selling handicraft items and snacks lining the park.

  Ko’s campaign estimated that about 3,000 people were in attendance at about 3:30pm and approximately 5,000 attended the event in total.
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