Keelung’s end-of-year election shock bomb! Candidate qualification review: 9-consecutive member of Parliament "out"

Keelung City Renai District Councilor Zhang Fangli, who is challenging for the ninth consecutive victory, was reported for bribery in the 1994 election of Speaker Xu Caili. The Central Election Commission held a qualification review meeting today and was found to be ineligible and unable to run. (Photo by reporter Yu Zhaofu)

The Central Election Commission (hereinafter referred to as the Central Election Commission) held a committee meeting today (16th) to review and approve the qualifications of candidates for the 115-year election of mayors, municipal councilors, county (city) mayors and county (city) councilors. 75-year-old Zhang Fangli, a senior member of Keelung City Renai who is striving for the ninth consecutive victory, was involved in the bribery case involving Xu Caili's candidacy for Keelung City Council Speaker in February 1994. She violated Article 143 of the Criminal Law and was not allowed to register as a candidate in accordance with Article 26, Paragraph 3 of the Public Employee Election and Recall Law (commonly known as the anti-gang clause).

Zhang Fangli does not meet the qualifications and is definitely out. The Keelung City Renai District Councilor election will change from 5 people to register to run for the 3 seats to 4 people. Zhang Fangli herself said that she would respond later.

The current Keelung City Council members are Tong Ziwei, Zheng Wenting, Zhang Fangli, and Zeng Jiyan. Due to the sharp decline in population, the Keelung City Council election on November 28 has only three seats to be elected. The current Speaker Tong Ziwei changed the race track to elect the mayor. Zeng Jiyan of the Kuomintang was detained for being involved in engineering fraud. A total of 5 people registered for the Renai District Councilor election, namely Zhang Fangli (without party membership), Zheng Wenting (DPP), Lin Xingjie (without party membership), Zeng Weixiang (Kuomintang), and Zhuang Jieyu (without party membership). Zhang Fangli was unable to run because of an old case in the past, so it ended up being 4 people competing for 3 seats.

According to information, Xu Caili was involved in the Keelung City Speaker election bribery case, which occurred in February 1994 when he was running for the 13th Speaker of the Keelung City Council. At that time, in order to seek re-election as Speaker, Xu Caili invited many city councilors to travel and entertain them through others, and agreed to vote for him in the election of Speaker and Deputy Speaker on March 1, 1994. The case attracted great attention at the time, and many Keelung politicians involved in the case were sentenced.