At least three people were hospitalised after mistakenly eating colourful pods of liquid laundry detergent that were distributed as a campaign freebie in Taiwan’s presidential race, according to Taiwanese media reports.
One of the victims said she thought the pods were candy, the Central News Agency reported.
The pods came in partially clear packaging with photos of Nationalist Party candidate Hou Yu-ih and his running mate.
Writing on the bag says “Vote for No.3,” the place on the ballot for the Nationalist ticket in the three-way race, and that each pod can wash up to 8kg of clothes.
A Nationalist campaign office gave out about 460,000 pods.
Hung Jung-chang, head of the office in central Taiwan, apologised for the incident, the news agency said.
“In the next wave of house-to-house visits, we will not distribute this kind of campaign material,” Hung said in a video aired on SET iNews. “We will also stress to our villagers through our grassroots organisations that they are laundry balls, not candies.”
Those hospitalised included an 80-year-old man and an 86-year-old woman who were released after having their stomachs flushed, the news agency said. The Nationalist Party is also known by its Chinese name, Kuomintang, or KMT.
Hou is running against William Lai of the governing Democratic Progressive Party and Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party in Saturday’s election.
The vote is being closely watched in both Beijing and Washington. — AP
