The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Friday filed a lawsuit against an individual who alleges that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who doubles as KMT chairman, received a political donation of NT$1 billion (US$32.8 million at current exchange rates) from a scandal-plagued business group during his presidential re-election campaign in 2012.
KMT spokesman Charles Chen (陳以信) said that Wu Tsu-chia (吳子嘉), in an Oct. 15 article on the my-formosa.com news Web site, said that the Wei (魏) family — owners of the Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團) embroiled in a cooking oil scandal — donated NT$1 billion to Ma.
Ma rejected the claim earlier last week, saying that it and a claim that his top aides “have helped to expand Ting Hsin’s territory,” are untrue.
As Wu failed to apologize before Friday as Ma demanded, the KMT filed a civil suit to demand that Wu publish his apology in four major Chinese-language newspapers — the Apple Daily, the Liberty Times, the United Daily News and the China Times — and that he pay damages of NT$3 million, Chen said.
“Wu’s accusations are by no means true,” Chen said.
Ma’s team received no political donations from Ting Hsin during the 2012 presidential campaign, nor did it receive any donations from the group between 2008 and last year, he said.
In response, Wu said he “stands by his report” and that he would wait for the matter to be settled in court according to the law.
Wu described the my-formosa.com site as a professional media outlet that is responsible for its content.
The site is subject to social assessments and “it uses consistent standards to question political parties, regardless of their political persuasion,” he said.
Wu said that the KMT also cited his article in questioning whether the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had accepted a donation from Ting Hsin.
He said that while the KMT reacted positively to his comments on the DPP and found them credible, the party questioned his remarks on the KMT, a stance he described as “contradictory” and “deplorable.”
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