A vote-buying scandal in Yunlin is now a major headache for the DPP, 53 days before Taiwan's local elections.

• Prosecutors seized close to NT$3 million in cash and pre-stuffed red envelopes from the brother of the DPP's Yunlin branch executive director.
• The younger brother is in detention; the party official himself walked out on NT$600,000 bail and is a top aide to DPP county magistrate candidate Liu Chien-kuo.
• The alleged scheme piggybacked on a government childcare subsidy — handing out matching cash gifts when families collected the public money.
• The KMT wants Liu to apologise and wants President Lai Ching-te to quit as chair of Liu's campaign headquarters, arguing his role pressures investigators.
• A second row is running in parallel over the overseas affairs minister, accused of letting her husband use an embassy car privately and taking her teenage son abroad as a fake "photo officer."

Outlook: Expect the KMT to keep pressing for charges before election day and to tie both cases into a broader double-standards attack on the DPP.