Angry protests erupt over Taiwan election

10.50am

UPDATED REPORT - TAIPEI - Defeated Taiwan presidential contender Lien Chan has led around 1,000 supporters in a march on the presidential office to demand a recount after incumbent Chen Shui-bian's narrow victory.

Chen won Saturday's presidential election, a day after he was shot by a would-be assassin, in the closest such poll in the island's history.

Quivering with rage, Nationalist Party leader Lien swiftly challenged the result, saying the shooting had influenced the outcome, and demanded the election be declared invalid.

"Let's march on the presidential office," lawmaker Chou Hsi-wei told a crowd staging a protest sit-in at Lien's campaign headquarters before they headed for the office in the heart of Taipei.

The election controversy has plunged the island into its most severe political crisis in years.

In cities across Taiwan, angry crowds massed outside courthouses to press Lien's demand for a recount in the election, won by Chen by just over 29,000 votes, or 0.2 per cent, out of 12.9 million cast.

"Examine the ballots, examine the ballots," a crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators chanted as several dozen police tried to hold them back from a court house in central Taichung city.

At the heart of the row is the high number of invalid ballots, which totalled 337,297, almost triple the 122,278 in 2000 and 11 times Chen's margin of victory.

Adding to the drama of Chen's narrow win was the failure of a referendum on boosting defences against China that had been his brainchild.

Lien's Nationalist Party filed several lawsuits in major cities demanding a recount.

"Seal the ballot boxes," chanted a crowd of about 1,000 in the southern port city of Kaohsiung as they tried to break though a police cordon around the court house.

When protesters rammed a campaign van plastered with a huge poster of Lien into a metal barrier, police beat the protesters back with batons.

VERY ANGRY

In Taichung, protesters pushed down barbed wire barriers and rushed into the building, smashing its glass doors.

"I know you are very angry. I feel exactly the same," said Taichung mayor and Nationalist veteran Jason Hu. He asked the protesters to join him in a sit-in outside the court.

It was the first violence since Lien lost the election.

"We have assigned the case to district courts," Taiwan High Court spokesman Wen Yao-yuan told reporters. "All district courts will move as soon as possible to preserve the evidence."

Analysts said this narrowest of wins could be due to an 11th-hour sympathy vote after at least one unidentified gunman fired twice at Chen. Most had expected Chen to lose based on underground betting odds and media surveys.

"The election is over," Chen said in his victory speech.

He made no mention of the failure of the referendum that was the linchpin of his campaign. Last week he told Reuters that re-election without passage of the referendum would make his victory meaningless.

Less than half the electorate voted in the referendum, rendering it void.

Lien challenged Chen's re-election, saying many question marks hung over Friday's shooting in which a bullet fired at the president's motorcade tore a gash in his abdomen.

"We ask the central election commission to seize and seal all ballot boxes," said Lien, before staging the sit-in at his campaign headquarters.

He also demanded a full inquiry into the shooting in Chen's southern home town of Tainan, fuelling conspiracy theories that have abounded since the assassination attempt.

"Its impact on this election needs no words, and its impact was direct. The doubts surrounding it give us one common impression -- this is an unfair election," said the multi-millionaire scion of one of Taiwan's wealthiest families.

MISSING VOTES?

Police said they believed two assailants were involved and authorities offered a T$13 million (213,000 pounds) reward for information leading to their capture. No one has been arrested.

After the attack, Chen activated the national security protocol, meaning 200,000 military and police -- traditionally Nationalist supporters -- could not vote.

"I think he (Chen) realises that without the gunshot incident Lien may be president now, so now is the time for him to bring the country together," said Philip Yang, a political scientist at National Taiwan University.

The main difference between the candidates was their policy towards arch-foe China.

Chen espouses an aggressive policy that sees Taiwan as independent. Lien favours a conciliatory approach to China.

Beijing has threatened war if Taiwan, which it regards as a renegade province, moves to declare formal independence.

China welcomed Chen's referendum humiliation, saying it was proof that any attempt to split the motherland would fail.

In his brief speech, Chen urged China to accept his victory, to withdraw 500 missiles arrayed against the island and to re-start talks frozen since 1999.

"We ask the Beijing authorities to look positively on the result of the election and the referendum," said Chen.

- REUTERS