The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday criticized Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), the Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate for Kaohsiung mayor, for not signing an anti-corruption agreement, saying that it was because several members on his campaign team have been implicated in corruption cases.
The KMT told a news conference that Kaohsiung City Councilor Jane Lee (李眉蓁), the KMT’s candidate for Kaohsiung mayor, brought up the idea of signing an anti-corruption agreement before Saturday’s by-election in an effort to prevent corruption as was seen when the DPP held the city’s mayoral seat.
The conference was held by KMT Deputy Secretary-General Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介), who heads Lee’s campaign spokesperson team; KMT Culture and Communications Committee chairwoman Alicia Wang (王育敏); and Kaohsiung Information Bureau Director-General Cheng Chao-hsin (鄭照新), one of Lee’s campaign spokespeople.
While Lee has vowed to govern the city with integrity if elected, Chen has refused to sign the agreement, possibly because “he does not have the courage to challenge the DPP’s systematic structure of complicity in bribery and corruption,” the KMT said.
The DPP has become “a government that maps out things,” reaping illicit benefits by way of political maneuvering, the KMT said.
For example, it said that Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲), who heads Chen’s campaign office, was implicated in a bribery case regarding the construction of the Nangang Exhibition Hall in 2008; Kang Yu-cheng (康裕成), Chen’s chief executive, was found guilty of forging documents to request money for an assistant in 2015; and her husband allegedly defrauded the National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) in 2006.
Lin Chin-hsing (林進興), the office’s deputy chairperson, was found guilty of defrauding the NHIA in 2008, while Lin Tai-hua (林岱樺), another deputy chairperson at the office, allegedly used her role as a legislator in 2017 to recommend a person to the state-owned Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC), which afterward hired them, the KMT said.
DPP Kaohsiung City Councilor Lin Chih-hung (林智鴻), a spokesperson for Chen’s campaign, said the by-election should come down to debates about policies, and that the team would not respond to political manipulation orchestrated by their opponents.
Kaohsiung has been at the forefront of Taiwan’s democratic development, so the by-election should be a joyful event for the citizens, as they can exercise their democratic right to elect a new mayor, Lin Chih-hung said.
However, the KMT has turned the election into a “mudslinging competition” that is not welcomed by Kaohsiung citizens, he added.
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