By Eryk Michael Smith/Staff -Image via Liberty Times shows Lin at a recent marathon event in Kaohsiung City.
KAOHSIUNG — With the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) set to begin phone polling for its Kaohsiung mayoral primary, DPP lawmaker and mayoral candidate Lin Tai-hua (林岱樺) on Sunday forcefully rejected three major controversies surrounding her campaign. Lin said the attacks “insult voters’ intelligence.”
The Liberty Times reports that Lin dismissed claims about “flirtatious” text messages as fabricated, noting the accusations only surfaced after prosecutors seized her phone. Her legal team, she said, found no such records in official files. “My phone is still in the investigators’ hands,” she said. “So who created these screenshots?” Lin called the claims “character assassination” aimed at female politicians.
Addressing a judicial probe into assistant expense reimbursements, Lin said she never misused public funds and described last year’s search as “politically timed.” She said she is fully confident of being cleared.
On rumors she may run as an independent, Lin reaffirmed her commitment to party rules, saying she will respect the primary outcome. “As long as the system is fair, leaving the party is not an option,” she said, stressing her only political backing comes from Kaohsiung voters.
The DPP primary will be decided through phone surveys of eligible voters, a system party officials say reflects public support rather than internal factional politics. However, the use of surveys via calls to landline phones has been criticised, with some pointing out that many no longer use such phones, while others argue the system could easily be manipulated, as there is no way of knowing if the person answering the call is who they claim to be.
