A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator yesterday said the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) should apologize for its former "black gold" politics practices after the father of President Chen Shui-bian's (
Chao Yu-chu (
DPP Legislator Charles Chiang (
Chiang yesterday held a press conference with a resident of Changhua County who had successfully exposed a KMT vote-buying scam in a previous election.
More than 200 people were implicated in the ensuing scandal.
"Chao spoke the truth about KMT corruption. Instead of admitting to the wrongdoings, the party said it never asked elementary school heads to bribe people. Lien should apologize to the public," Chiang said.
Chao had been an elementary school principal for 20 years. He retired from the Ta Chiou Elementary School in Tainan County in February last year. His son Chao Chien-ming (
Speaking at the establishment of a local support group for Chen's reelection bid on Thursday, Chao said that he had been forced to join the KMT before he could be appointed as the school's principal.
He said that, during elections, local elementary school principals were asked to become "vote-buying captains" to deliver bribes for the KMT's candidates, and were allowed to keep any money that was not spent.
Chao said the bribe money usually came from the KMT's headquarters or the KMT-dominated reserve military system.
"I joined the KMT to escape poverty. I've lost my dignity as a school principal and I shouldn't have done so," Chao said.
He said he is not a KMT member anymore.
Chao said that, during the 2000 presidential election, the KMT did not give bribe money directly to local vote captains, but did it by means of subsidies to elementary school heads.
In response to the accusations, KMT spokesperson Alex Tsai (
The KMT's Tainan County chap-ter director, Shen Jung-feng (沈榮鋒), filed a libel suit against Chao on Friday, and the Tainan Prosecutors' Office has decided to summon him for questioning soon.
Shen denied that the KMT had ever asked headmasters to buy votes.
Chao Chung-yueh (趙中岳), deputy director of the Tainan Prosecutors' Office, yesterday said pro-secutors would investigate Chao's claims about the presidential election in 2000.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
RSS