Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) speculated yesterday that pan-blue leaders may have violated an electoral code in their recent negotiations concerning the upcoming mayoral elections.
Lu made the remark in response to a media inquiry on the Dec. 1 meeting between Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) while campaigning at Taipei's Xingtian Temple for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidates for Taipei City councilor.
Lu said that Ma and Soong may have violated the Public Officials Election and Recall Law (公職人員選舉罷免法) if they talked about dumping a candidate in order to get another elected.
Lu was referring to Article 92 of the Public Officials Election and Recall Law, which stipulates that it is illegal to attempt to affect an election by circulating rumors or false information about any candidate in the form of words, pictures, recorded messages, videotapes, speeches and so forth and thereby cause injury to the public interest.
While many people were curious about what the two had discussed during the meeting, Lu called on Taipei residents to take the matter seriously.
Chen Chien-ming (陳建銘), who is running for Tapei City councilor under the Taiwan Solidarity Union banner, yesterday told a press conference that he would sue Ma and Soong for their secret meeting last Friday.
"After the meeting, a banner that read `send Soong to the Taipei City Government and Ma to the Presidential Office [in 2008]' was shown throughout the city, which means that there must have been some sort of agreement for an exchange," Chen said.
Such an act would be a violation of the Public Officials Election and Recall Law, he said, adding that Soong ought to drop out of the race.
"People should condemn such closed-door politics, as they are unfit for a democracy," he said.
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