Tainan authorities have launched an investigation into vote-buying allegations involving a legislative candidate from the Taiwan People’s Communist Party (TPCP).
The party is accused of receiving money from China to buy votes in Taiwan.
Prosecutors coordinating with police and Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau officials raided four locations in the city on Monday, including the candidate’s and the party’s offices.
They also summoned for questioning 45 people who took part in a junket to China early last month. Prosecutors summoned more people yesterday, increasing the number of people questioned to more than 60.
Tainan Deputy Chief Prosecutor Lin Chung-pin (林仲斌) said suspects would be charged with contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法) and provisions of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法).
Regarded as a fringe political party based in Tainan’s Sinying District (新營), the TPCP was founded in 2016 by Lin Te-wang (林德旺), a Taiwanese who had operated a business in China. Lin had been a high-ranking member of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Lin, the TPCP chairman, is suspected of channeling money from China, arranging junkets for Tainan residents and funding a candidate running on a pro-China platform in Saturday next week’s elections, contesting a legislative seat in Tainan’s first electoral district, Lin Chung-pin said.
The prosecutors had conducted a preliminary investigation based on tip-offs, and found that Lin Te-wang had conduits to transfer money from China, allegedly to buy votes.
He allegedly took some Tainan residents to Jiangsu Province, China, and the participants were asked to vote for the party’s candidate in exchange for the trip, the prosecutors said.
“The trips were affiliated with TPCP and its connections in China. Four such trips were made since August [last year], whose participants varied from 20 to 40 people... Investigations showed that overall about 100 people participated in the eight-day group tour,” Lin Chung-pin said.
Lin Te-wang also took part in the trips, and the participants were treated to banquets and gifts by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office officials and other Chinese government figures as they toured several cities in the province, investigators said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS