Voters rushed to hospital after eating laundry detergent in Taiwan election giveaway

One of the victims said she thought the pods were candy

At least three people were hospitalized after mistakenly eating colorful 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 eight kilograms (18 pounds) of clothes.

A Nationalist campaign office gave out about 460,000 pods. Hung Jung-chang, head of the office in central Taiwan, apologized 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 organizations that they are laundry balls, not candies.”

This image taken from video shows liquid laundry detergent balls inside a package given by Nationalist Party (KMT)

Those hospitalized 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. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory, while the U.S. sells arms to the self-governing island to defend against any attack.

Saturday’s presidential and parliamentary polls are taking place against a backdrop of a ramped-up war of words between Taiwan and China, which views the island as its own territory despite the strong objections of the Taiwanese government.

Taiwan‘s government has accused China of an unprecedented campaign of election interference, using everything from military activity to trade sanctions to sway the vote towards candidates Beijing may prefer.

China has cast the election as a choice between war and peace, and says interference allegations are “dirty tricks” from Taiwan‘s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to try and win support.

The DPP’s presidential candidate Lai Ching-te said on Tuesday he would maintain the status quo and pursue peace through strength if elected, remaining open to engagement with Beijing under the preconditions of equality and dignity.

Beijing has denounced him as a separatist and warned that any attempt to push for Taiwan‘s formal independence means conflict.

Despite this, Lai pledged to try to engage with China.

“Peace is priceless and war has no winners,” Lai told reporters at a news conference. “Peace without sovereignty is just like Hong Kong. It is fake peace.”

Beijing is unswayed by Lai’s outreach attempts.

On Tuesday evening, China’s commerce ministry said it was looking into further steps to suspend tariff concessions on products including agriculture and fishery, machinery, auto parts and textiles from Taiwan, following up on such a move made against some petrochemical products last month.