The Pingtung District Court on Friday found Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) official Chang Ya-ping (張雅屏) guilty of conducting a smear campaign during the 2014 local elections, sentencing him to two years and 10 months in prison, as well depriving him of his civil rights for five years.
The court’s decision came as an embarrassment to the party and KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) after Hung appointed Chang to head the KMT’s Organizational Development Committee and also named him one of the party’s seven deputy secretaries-general.
Chang’s case stemmed from the nine-in-one elections in 2014, when Chang was the head of the KMTs Pingtung County chapter. At the time, county residents received numerous campaign brochures that made allegations against then-Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) county commissioner candidate Pan Men-an (潘孟安).
Three waves of campaign brochures were produced and circulated by the KMT’s Pingtung County chapter that insinuated Pan, a legislator at the time, had been having extramarital affairs with four different elected councilors.
The second and third sets of campaign literature named KMT councilor Lin Yu-hung (林郁虹) as among the four married women embroiled in the alleged “scandalous sexual affair” with Pan.
Both the DPP’s Pingtung County branch and Lin filed complaints with prosecutors and sought judicial investigation into suspected violations of electoral law by attempting to spread accusations and false statements against candidates to prevent them from getting elected.
Investigators found that the smear campaign was planned and organized by people linked to the KMT’s Pingtung County chapter, under Chang’s instructions.
The judicial probe resulted in an indictment against Chang, along with four other suspects: Chang’s publicity director Huang Wen-cheng (黃文政), the KMT’s Pingtung City Branch director Fu Chien-hsiung (傅建雄), Aboriginal cultural group Naluwan Urban Organization secretary-general Liao Po-nien (廖柏哖) and a publicity firm manager surnamed Liu (劉).
Friday’s ruling also found Huang, Liao and Liu guilty and sentenced them to between six and nine months in prison for violating Article 104 of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) by “disseminating rumors or spread false statements by text, picture, audio tape, video tape, speech or other method for the purpose of having a candidate elected or not elected.”
Chang said he was angry and disappointed over the court’s ruling and vowed to appeal the verdict.
Pan said he respected the court’s ruling.
“This is the justice system enabling Pingtung County to have clean elections. We hope people can learn from this and refrain from campaign mudslinging tactics,” Pan said.
Lin condemned her party’s behavior.
“The KMT resorted to dirty tricks and damaged the reputation of one of its own party members while trying to win the election. The accusations have hurt me and tarnished my good name. The party owes me an apology,” Lin said.
The effort by Chang and his KMT officials was not successful, as Pan won the Pingtung County commissioner post, while Lin won her councilor seat in the 2014 polls.
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