Taoyuan City Councilor Wang Hao-yu (王浩宇) of the Green Party Taiwan yesterday accused Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) of mentioning opinion poll results at a campaign event for the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on Saturday.
The TPP, of which Ko is chairman, denied the accusation. Ko shared his thoughts on the relationship between the military and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on the sidelines of the event in Taichung, the TPP said.
“It is a long-term problem that the DPP never had a very good relationship with the military,” Ko said on Saturday. “It is terrible that a lot of military personnel do not support the government.”
Photo: Chen Hsin-yu, Taipei Times
From his experience interacting with military personnel as Taipei mayor, “professional soldiers generally do not emotionally like the DPP,” Ko said.
The Green Party Taiwan on Sunday wrote on Facebook that Ko’s remarks breached Article 53 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), which prohibits publishing, reporting, otherwise disseminating or commenting on election-related polls in the 10 days before voting.
Wang yesterday filed a report with the Central Election Commission, accusing Ko of contravening the act by citing statistics derived from opinion polls, including an analysis of respondents’ occupations.
TPP spokesperson Chen You-cheng (陳宥丞) yesterday denied the accusation, saying that Ko did not cite any polls at event, but merely gave an account of long-term problems expressed by a group of people about the governing party.
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