Top figures from the nation’s two largest parties are expected to congregate in Nantou County today, the final day of campaigning for a legislative by-election tomorrow.
The two leading candidates are the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Tsai Pei-hui (蔡培慧) and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Lin Ming-chen (林明溱), who had served as a legislator and Nantou County commissioner.
They are running for the county’s second electorate district, which includes Nantou City, Jhushan Township (竹山) and Jiji Township (集集), as well the rural townships of Lugu (鹿谷), Mingjian (名間), Shueili (水里) and Sinyi (信義).
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
DPP Legislator Lin Ching-yi (林靜儀) called on the county’s young people and students of voting age to return home to cast their vote.
“Tsai Pei-hui is the best choice, and your ballot can make a difference for Nantou,” Lin told a media briefing at DPP headquarters in Taipei.
Lin said that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Vice President and DPP Chairman William Lai (賴清德), and fellow legislators are to address the crowd tonight at the DPP rally next to the main night market of Nantou City.
Photo: Hsieh Chieh-yu, Taipei Times
KMT officials said that the party’s rally is to start with a motorcade late in the afternoon and end at the Nantou County Sports Stadium in Nantou City, with KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), Deputy Chairman Sean Lien (連勝文), Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安), Nantou County Commissioner Hsu Shu-hua (許淑華) and Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) attending.
During campaigning over the past few weeks, Tsai Pei-hui and her team have questioned Lin’s links to China, saying that in less than six years while serving as county commissioner, he had taken 133 trips abroad, 84 of which were to China.
Her campaign officials and DPP legislators alleged that Lin headed many of these “junkets” to China, accompanied by county officials, as well as borough wardens and village chiefs, and had been influenced by Beijing’s “united front” propaganda, including promises of business benefits and other incentives, thereby undermining Taiwan’s economic interests and national security.
They also alleged that Lin plagiarized his master’s thesis at the Chaoyang University of Technology in Taichung, mismanaged garbage collection and left trash piling up in several towns, and other official misconduct.
Lin’s camp rejected the plagiarism accusation, said that the overseas trips were to explore Chinese markets for Nantou’s farm products, and blamed the garbage problem on DPP government officials.
Tsai Pei-hui was yesterday endorsed by more than 130 academics, including from National Chi Nan University, the county’s sole public university.
“Like many young people, Tsai [Pei-hui] left her hometown in the county to continue her education and start her career, but she never forgot her roots. That is why she returned immediately to Nantou the next day after the Sept. 21, 1999, earthquake,” said an open letter by the academics, which her campaign office made public.
Tsai Pei-hui applied her knowledge in agricultural economics, along with her connection to civil society and farmers groups, to good use during those years, the letter said.
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