Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Deputy Secretary-General Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) yesterday urged Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to apologize to the public and resign his chairmanship to assume responsibility for a vote-buying scandal.
Tsai said now that Kaohsiung prosecutors had "proved" a bribery allegation involving a member of KMT Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Huang Chun-ying's (黃俊英) camp was true, the KMT should stop pressuring prosecutors in an effort to "confuse the public" about the investigation.
Huang was accused of vote-buying by his rival DPP mayoral candidate Chen Chu's (陳菊) campaign headquarters on the eve of mayoral election held last Saturday.
Tsai said DPP evidence given to the prosecutors on election day all "pointed to Huang or KMT staffers," and now the prosecutors' findings had "proven" the KMT guilty.
He urged prosecutors to investigate further into the case to see who was behind the bribery or if there was a bigger plot behind it.
He also urged the KMT to stop pressuring prosecutors by employing "dirty tricks," adding that Kaohsiung citizens needed a break after the mayoral election.
Tsai was responding to a half-page advertisement placed by the KMT on four major Chinese-language newspapers yesterday, which charged DPP mayoral candidate Chen Chu's camp with playing dirty tricks on the eve of the election to discredit Huang.
Chen's camp held a late-night press conference before the election, alleging that a number of Chen supporters working undercover witnessed a staffer of Huang hand out "cash envelopes" to people on two buses returning from Huang's campaign rally.
The bus' passengers were also instructed to vote for Huang, Chen's camp alleged.
"Although the election is over, it looks as if the KMT is still running an election campaign," he said. "We believe this case will be solved soon and we will see that the KMT cannot justify their actions."
He suggested that the KMT should amend the Public Officials' Election and Recall Law (公務人員選舉罷免法) so that "the procedure of recounting ballots will be automatically initiated whenever the KMT is dissatisfied with the election results."
"We have seen that the KMT cannot stand losing the election, but we have not heard Ma say he will resign if Huang were found guilty of buying votes," director of DPP's Department of Culture and Information Super Meng (孟義超) said.
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