By Rich Chang / Staff Reporter
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday lost a lawsuit seeking to invalidate New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu’s (朱立倫) elected status, citing the potential impact from a controversial shooting on election eve in November last year.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) won three of the five special municipality mayoral races on Nov. 27, just hours after KMT Central Committee member Sean Lien (連勝文) was shot at a campaign event.
The DPP alleged that the KMT campaign teams manipulated the shooting to their advantage and that this affected the fairness of the election.
The DPP filed three lawsuits against KMT mayors on Dec. 31.
The DPP’s Taipei mayoral candidate, Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), filed a lawsuit with the Taipei District Court against Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), while Tsai, the DPP candidate in New Taipei City (新北市), filed a suit with the Shilin District Court against Chu, and Greater Taichung DPP candidate Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) filed with the Taichung District Court against Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強).
The Taipei and Taichung district courts have yet to hear the cases.
In its ruling yesterday, the Shilin District Court said there was insufficient evidence to show that the shooting of Lien was a result of manipulation by the KMT and that the incident had affected the election result.
Lien, one of former vice president Lien Chan’s (連戰) sons, was shot in the face while participating at an election-eve rally for Chen Hung-yuan (陳鴻源), a KMT councilor candidate in New Taipei City (新北市).
The shooting led to an outpouring of sympathy votes for ruling party candidates the next day, DPP lawmakers said after the incident.
After the ruling, the DPP lamented what it called the court’s inability to get to the bottom of the story.
“We regret the ruling. The DPP filed the lawsuit with the aim of finding the truth behind the shooting incident to offer the victim an explanation,” DPP spokesman Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said.
The initial investigation and trial showed the shooting incident was exaggerated by some people, Chen said.
“However, it’s a pity that the court failed to find out the truth,” he said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CHRIS WANG