Chinese Nationalist Party (KTM) Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien’s (連勝文) campaign bribed taxi drivers to participate in a rally on Sunday, a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei city councilor said yesterday.
Lien appeared at a rally on Ketagalan Boulevard sponsored by the Taxi Support Association and promised to improve the wages and conditions of cab drivers if elected.
Taipei City Councilor Tung Chung-yan (童仲彥) held a news conference yesterday, where he played a video clip taken at that rally that appeared to show taxi drivers saying they would receive a month’s waver of union dues or NT$1,000 for showing up at the rally. Unidentified persons could also be seen making notes of the license plates of taxis at the rally.
Tung also showed reporters what he said were internal documents from Taipei’s taxicab union showing that a member of KMT’s Taipei branch, Liang Ping-liang (梁平良), had taken responsibility for mobilizing 500 cab drivers to attend the rally. Liang is the managing director of the union.
Any cash payment or fee waiver would be illegal under the Election and Recall Act (選舉罷免法), which forbids hiring people to participate in campaign events, Tung said.
He said he might file a lawsuit against Lien and Liang today if the Taipei Prosecutors’ Office does not investigate his allegations.
Chien Chen-yu (錢震宇), a spokesman for Lien’s campaign, said the campaign would “not respond to any city councilor’s slander” and would not cooperate with Tung’s “deliberate attempt to create controversy.”
Liang denied there had been any payments made to rally participants of offers of a fee waiver, saying that all the drivers had attended on their own initiative.
Additional reporting by Kuo An-chia
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