A Taiwan court on Friday annulled the election of Chen Chu as mayor of the southern Kaohsiung city saying Chen had used "tricks that would surely impact the election result" one day before the vote.

After the election of last December, the Kuomintang Party's (KMT) candidate Huang Chun-ying filed a lawsuit in the local court against the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Chen Chu, who narrowly won the race by a margin of just over 1,100 votes. There were 767,800 votes cast, according to Taiwan media reports.

The court of Kaohsiung, the second-largest city of the island, heard from 26 witnesses, Huang, Chen and Kaohsiung electoral committee representatives.

"Justice finally returns to me," Huang said.

Chen said he would appeal.

If the original ruling is to be maintained, Chen will be dismissed as mayor and a by-election will be held.

Ballot boxes were sealed last December after the KMT candidate Huang, upset with the DPP's "mean and dirty" campaign, demanded a recount and lashed out at his opponent's "apparent dirty tricks".

Chen and his supporters held a news conference just hours before the polls opened, at which they produced a videotape which they said showed Huang was involved in election bribery.

Supporters of Huang immediately questioned the veracity of the video tape, saying the last minute allegation was an underhanded attempt to sway voters after public opinion polls showed Huang was leading prior to the election day.

The official vote count showed Chen with 379,417 votes or 49.41 percent of the vote, while Huang received 378,303 votes or 49.27 percent of the vote.

(Xinhua News Agency June 16, 2007)