The Central Election Commission (CEC) yesterday said that holding a second debate between Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) and independent candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) would be against the law if the organizer does not invite the five other candidates.
Acting commission chairman Liu Yi-chou (劉義周) made the remarks following Lien’s call for another debate with Ko after their first televised debate on Friday last week. While there are seven candidates vying for the post, only Lien and Ko were invited to the Friday event.
Lien yesterday said he was willing to debate Ko, a physician, on healthcare, as well as plans for Taipei’s economic development and job opportunities, to allow voters to decide who is more suited to tackling Taipei’s challenges.
Photo: CNA
However, Liu said that with the official election campaign period starting yesterday, inviting some, but not all, of the candidates to a public debate would violate the rules on fairness and impartiality required of TV and radio stations as stipulated in the Civil Servants Election And Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法).
Violators face a fine of between NT$200,000 and NT$2 million (US$6,500 and US$65,000).
Any television station that invites only select candidates will be penalized for failing to treat all contenders in a fair and unbiased manner, Liu said.
Whether Lien and Ko have another debate is up to the media outlet hosting the event, but anyone could use video of the event as evidence and submit it to the local election committee for adjudication within a month after its broadcast, Liu said.
He added that two of the candidates who were not invited to the Friday debate had lodged complaints with the commission, accusing SET-TV of breaching the law.
The commission said that since the official campaign period had not yet started at the time the debate was held, it was not deemed a violation.
Liu said the commission would not demand that TV station hosts halt the debate if they choose to invite only a few candidates during the official campaign period, but they should be prepared to be challenged over its legality and fairness.
A TV news station was once disciplined for showing bias toward a particular candidate with its excessive coverage, but there is no precedent on a TV debate being ruled illegal, Liu said.
Additional reporting by Abraham Gerber
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