A fight over vote-buying claims in Taiwan's Hualien County has put the Kuomintang on the defensive ahead of local elections.

• A former Financial Times reporter who lived in rural Hualien said locally that every vote there is bought.
• KMT lawmaker Fu Kun-chi demanded she produce evidence or apologize, and the party's Hualien county chief candidate hinted at a lawsuit.
• Youth group head Chang Yu-meng answered by listing past cases: five KMT-nominated candidates convicted of vote-buying in 2009 local races, which triggered a multi-million NT dollar party fine, plus another conviction and fine in 2014.
• Prosecutors in Hualien logged more than 160 election complaints before the 2018 local vote, with one ballot going for as much as NT$10,000.
• One tenth of all the vote-buying whistleblower reward money ever paid out nationwide went to Hualien alone.

Outlook: Expect the row to grow louder as Hualien's county chief race heats up, with the KMT pressed to explain the county's record rather than just deny the charge.