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Ministries cooperate in crack-down on vote-buying
(Taipei Journal, 10/05/2001)
Story Type:National Affairs;
Byline:Catherine Hsieh
Taiwan's year-end elections are fast approaching, and constituents across the island will soon be visiting voting booths to choose legislators, county magistrates and mayors to represent them at the various levels of government. In the first large-scale election to be held under the Democratic Progressive Party-led administration, the Cabinet is coordinating an interministerial effort to crack down on election bribery. President Chen Shui-bian and Premier Chang Chun-hsiung have expressed their determination to eliminate vote buying and make the election process fair.
During a meeting at which the Cabinet briefed him on its anti-bribery plan, Chen said that the people of Taiwan are scrutinizing the DPP-led administration on its effectiveness in cracking down on election fraud. In order to help ensure the strict enforcement of the anti-bribery scheme, the president promised rewards for uncovering cases of vote buying. The new measure would mete out severe penalties to law enforcement officers who look the other way as it happens.
The Cabinet gathered officials from various ministries to craft a well-rounded scheme. Each ministry is tasked with a specific high-priority mission.
At the center in the anti-bribery campaign, the Ministry of Justice has established certain ground rules based on past experience. In addition to making avid use of its wiretapping capabilities and urging banks to report suspicious transactions, the ministry has directed local police forces to collect the names of political parties' vote buying operatives in their areas. This year will also see an increase in the number of inspectors at each polling station to better protect voters from improper influence such as offers of money and threats of violence at the polls.
For the first time, each of the island's 80,000 police officers will take part in an all-out effort to investigate and expose vote buying. Although the police have lent their assistance in the past, fighting election fraud was left to the discretion of prosecutors. After last year's presidential election the Ministry of Interior's National Police Administration redefined the role of local police units on this matter--giving them a mandate to investigate vote buying and rewarding officers who make arrests.
The NPA raised the stakes this year with a new policy that holds local police units responsible when they fail to deter election bribery in their jurisdictions. Officers who turn a blind eye to the practice, or who are ignorant of it, will be given demerit points. Those who take the initiative in reporting election fraud will earn promotions and higher rewards than last year.
New regulations are in place that expand the scope of investigations into candidates, their relatives, their in-laws and their campaign staff who are suspected of soliciting votes in exchange for cash.
The Ministry of Finance will focus its efforts on financial investigations. It has enlisted the cooperation of all the island's major financial institutions in reporting suspicious transactions. The ministry will employ forensic accounting techniques such as tracking unusual movements of cash within a financial institution, scrutinizing large loans made by candidates and their relatives, watching for withdrawals of large sums of money, identifying unusual fluctuations in a financial institution's deposits, loans, and expenditures, and keeping a more stringent inventory of cash reserves to prevent embezzlement.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications, in conjunction with private telecommunications companies, is tasked with setting up an extensive wiretapping network to aid investigators. Although some cellular service providers have been reluctant to cooperate, the ministry pointed out that they are obligated by law to assist law enforcement bodies in collecting evidence of criminal activity.
Because candidates in the past have bought votes with expensive gifts, State Public Prosecutor General Lu Ren-fa, together with other high-ranking public prosecutors, set a price ceiling of US$1 on campaign souvenirs like key rings, lighters, calendars and tissue paper packs embossed with the names of candidates. Such promotional items must not exceed the price ceiling lest their distribution be construed as vote buying. Some have expressed doubt that US$1 is an appropriate standard and urged the Ministry of Justice to look into the matter.
Likewise, candidates or their functionaries who pass out souvenirs with an inherent cash value such as phone debit cards, bills of lading and coupons--regardless of how much or little they are worth--will also be considered to be buying votes.
The Prosecutor's Office of Taitung District Court was among the first to put together a list of members of vote-buying networks in their area while visiting banks to solicit support in monitoring suspicious activity. Prosecutors in Kaohsiung City, Changhua County and Taichung City have also begun gathering intelligence. Observers have generally spoken out in favor of the government's anti-vote buying initiative.
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