Taiwan's highest court has cleared Hualien county council speaker Chang Chun in a 13-year-old LED lighting kickback case, freeing him to run for county chief in this year's local elections.

• Chang was accused of using council grant money to buy LED lights for profit while serving as deputy speaker; a lower court gave him nearly eight years, an appeals court cleared him, and prosecutors lost their final appeal.
• Several other councillors from Hualien and Nantou stayed convicted but got lighter sentences because the case dragged on for more than eight years.
• The timing matters: the election commission formally announces the local elections today, so Chang is free to campaign.
• He is going after the record of Fu Kun-chi and Hsu Chen-wei, the married pair who have taken turns running Hualien for 17 years.

Outlook: Chang is expected to campaign hard on jobs, transport, elderly care, and disaster response in the run-up to the year-end vote.