Tainan City Council speaker, deputy cleared of vote rigging charges

Taipei, April 29 (CNA) Tainan City Council Speaker Chiu Li-li (邱莉莉), Deputy Speaker Lin Chih-chan (林志展) and eight co-defendants were acquitted Monday of charges of rigging the city council's speaker and deputy speaker elections in December 2022.

The Tainan District Court said prosecutors presented insufficient evidence to convict Chiu and Lin, both of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), as well as three city councilors and five others who were indicted in the case.

The verdict can be appealed.

Tainan city councilors Li Wen-chun (李文俊) and Lee Chen-kuo (李鎮國), who were expelled from the Kuomintang (KMT) after breaking ranks to support Chiu in the speaker election, and independent councilor Huang Li-chao (黃麗招) were also indicted in the case on March 2, 2023.

The five other individuals charged were former DPP Central Executive Committee member Kuo Tsai-chin (郭再欽); Lin Shih-chieh (林士傑), the father of DPP City Councilor Lin Yi-ting (林依婷); Yuan Shan International Development Co. Chairman Yang Chih-chiang (楊志強); city government employee Huang Yi-ping (黃怡萍); and Lee Chen-kuo's wife Kao Mei-hsien (高玫仙).

Chiu defeated Kuo Hsin-liang (郭信良), an independent former speaker supported by the KMT, by a 36-21 vote in the 57-seat council, in which the DPP held 28 seats, the KMT 12, independents 13, and the remaining four held by three small parties.

Prosecutors alleged that Kuo Tsai-chin, Chiu and Lin Chih-chan resorted to vote buying, intimidation, and vote trading to persuade some KMT and independent city councilors to vote for the DPP nominees.

Among those targeted by the trio, the indictment said, was Fang Yi-feng (方一峰) of the KMT.

According to prosecutors, ahead of the election, Yang, acting under instructions from Kuo Tsai-chin, invited Fang to meet and tried to bribe him to vote for himself in the elections, but Fang rejected the offer.

Fang was then asked to meet Huang Yi-ping and Lin Shih-chieh in a van and was told to be absent from the vote or vote for himself rather than Kuo Hsin-liang, which scared him into reporting the incident to police, prosecutors said.

In a call with reporters Monday, Chuang Chung-ta (莊政達), who led the panel of judges hearing the case, said contrary to prosecutors' allegations, the suspects' interactions with Fang did not show a clear intent to bribe, but rather fell in the realm of election banter and small talk.

Testimony given by Fang was also repetitive and contradictory, making it an insufficiently sound basis on which to convict the suspects, he said.

Other materials provided by prosecutors, including transcripts of calls between Chiu, Lin Chih-chan and Kuo Tsai-chin, and alleged efforts to bribe Lee Chen-kuo, also failed to show clear evidence of a crime, Chuang said.

Speaking after the verdict was announced, a visibly emotional Chiu thanked the court, her family and friends, and the Tainan City Council's DPP caucus for supporting her throughout the legal proceedings.

"An injustice was finally righted today. I want to thank everybody for their concern," she said.

Citing the verdict, the Tainan City Council's DPP caucus called on the party's national leadership to lift the three-year suspensions it imposed on Chiu and Lin Chih-chan's party memberships.

Chiu and Lin continue to serve as speaker and deputy speaker of the city council.

Meanwhile, Tainan Deputy Chief Prosecutor Tsai Tsung-sheng (蔡宗聖) said his office will discuss whether or not to appeal the verdict after it had received and reviewed the full text of the court's ruling.