Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) yesterday apologized to the public for a shooting that killed a man and injured one of former vice president Lien Chan’s (連戰) sons, Sean Lien (連勝文), during a campaign rally the night before the municipal elections on Saturday.
“Maintaining public security is the responsibility of the National Police Agency [NPA] and the Ministry of the Interior. I regret that the shooting took place ... and I apologize to the public, the injured and the family of [29-year-old Huang Yun-sheng (黃運聖)],” Jiang said during a -legislative -committee meeting in the morning.
The alleged gunman, Lin Cheng-wei (林正偉), 48, was immediately apprehended by police.
As Sean Lien was on stage campaigning for Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Sinbei councilor candidate Chen Hung-yuan (陳鴻源) at about 8pm on Friday in Yonghe City (永和), Taipei County, a man ran up to the stage and shot him in the face. The bullet allegedly went through Lien’s face and killed Huang, who was in the crowd.
Investigators were also trying to determine the origin of the pistol used by Lin and corroborate a story by the individual who immediately tackled the attacker and somehow managed to prevent him from firing additional shots.
“The suspect tried hard to pull the trigger two or three times. He clearly intended to kill Lien. He pulled so hard that my fingers were swollen,” the unidentified man said on Sunday.
The Internal Administration Committee had invited Jiang and NPA director-general Wang Cho-chiun (王卓鈞) for a briefing on the shooting.
Meanwhile, DPP legislators said the shooting likely affected the outcome of the elections by mobilizing sympathetic voters for KMT candidates.
The incident, which received extensive media coverage hours before the polls opened, was augmented by remarks from several KMT politicians calling the -incident a “political shooting.”
While senior DPP officials said immediately after polls closed that it was too early to tell to what extent voting was affected, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Pan Men-an (潘孟安) said it was likely in the hundreds of thousands.
“That one bullet led many undecided voters to cast sympathy votes,” DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said. “This very likely changed the course of the election.”
The fallout probably cost the DPP mayorship in one or both of the closely fought Greater Taichung and Sinbei City races, DPP lawmakers said. KMT candidates took Taichung and Sinbei City by 2.2 percent and 5.2 percent.
Based on a preliminary analysis by the DPP, voters most likely affected by the shooting were in Taipei City, Sinbei City and Greater Taichung, Pan said. The sum, he said, likely added up to at least 10 percent of the total vote.
“Still, even if it wasn’t enough to change the election results in Taipei City or Sinbei City, the DPP only lost in Greater Taichung by 30,000 votes,” Tsai said. “[Half the number] would have been enough for a reversal.”
DPP lawmakers said public remarks by several KMT politicians, including KMT Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇), after the shooting but before police had commented on the motives of the suspect were inappropriate given that they asked voters to “punish [them] using your votes.”
Even KMT lawmakers have acknowledged that some reactions, including Lien Chan’s emotional speech at one of Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) election events immediately following the shooting, likely helped drive up the KMT vote.
“It was a few short sentences, but many people were emotional,” KMT Legislator Kuo Su-chun (郭素春) told FTV News. “As a result, [voters] likely cast their ballots with more determination.”
“They don’t care about the shooting incident or the injuries sustained by Sean Lien,” KMT Legislator Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said. “All the DPP seems to care about is whether [it gained] two seats or three.”
Hsieh, who visited Sean Lien in the hospital, dismissed allegations that the shooting was staged.
“Why don’t you [DPP legislators] take a bullet and see how that feels? If you survive, I will agree with everything you say,” Hsieh said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG, STAFF WRITER AND CNA
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