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Taiwan fights vote-buying in hotly contested polls
2001-10-12
TAIPEI - Taiwan has intensified a crackdown on vote-buying as a record number of candidates sign up for parliamentary elections which are expected to redraw the island's political landscape and chart the course of ties with China. The island's 70,000-strong police force will join the campaign against vote-buying for the first time, a shot in the arm for Taiwan's 700 prosecutors who single-handedly battled election fraud in the past, Reuters reported. The justice ministry has unveiled regulations allowing prosecutors to press charges against candidates who give away campaign T-shirts, towels and lighters worth more than T$30 ($0.87) each while campaigning for the December 1 elections. But the controversial rules came under fire from Wu Nai-jen, secretary-general of President Chen Shui-bian's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), who called justice minister Chen Ding-nan "a Martian" who was "ignorant of earthly ways." Many candidates will be strapped for cash and spend less on campaigning as the polls, which are sure to be hotly contested, come against a backdrop of a sharp economic decline and a record jobless rate. A record 458 candidates have registered to fight for 176 directly elected parliamentary seats, election officials said on Friday. Another 49 seats will be distributed among political parties in proportion to the number of votes they collect. The DPP is fielding 83 candidates for the directly elected seats, aiming to become the biggest party in parliament. President Chen has said the DPP, which holds just 66 seats in the current legislature, would form a post-election coalition government, but it is unclear who its coalition partner would be. An election wild card is former president Lee Teng-hui, who has staged a comeback in the hope of becoming a kingmaker and preventing Taiwan from drifting too close, too quickly to Beijing. The former ruling Nationalist Party purged Lee last month for campaigning for the splinter Taiwan Solidarity Union party. Lee headed the Nationalists for 12 years until last year when protesters forced him to resign over the party's humiliating defeat in presidential elections which ended more than five decades of one-party rule. Lee, 78, still one of Taiwan's most popular politicians for democratising the island, is upset the Nationalists deviated from his "Taiwan first" policy and sought to move closer to Beijing. Political analysts say Lee may end up stealing more DPP than Nationalist votes. He is still popular in traditional political strongholds of the DPP in southern Taiwan. The Solidarity Union has nominated 39 candidates, mostly little-known politicians passed over by the Nationalists or the DPP. Media polls show single-digit support for the new party. The once-formidable Nationalist Party, still believed to be the world's richest political party, is struggling to hold on to its majority in parliament and is entering 98 candidates to contest the directly elected seats. Another Nationalist splinter party, the People First Party, is fielding 61 candidates. It holds 20 seats. Ahead of the parliamentary and mayoral elections, authorities have also stepped up a crackdown against "black gold" -- corruption and political links to organised crime. Prosectors have indicted independent legislator Lo Fu-chu on assault charges for attacking lawmaker Diane Lee during a legislative session in March. Lo defended his action saying Lee had called him a gangster. Prosecutors recommended that police arrest Lo on hooliganism charges. Lo called the move "political persecution." Lo announced on Thursday he would not run for re-election, but his son, a Nationalist deputy, would seek another term.
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