The district court of Taiwan's Kaohsiung City has ruled that all the ballots cast in December's mayoral election in this southern city must be recounted.

The court made the order after Kuomintang Party's (KMT) losing candidate Huang Chun-ying filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the election result because the winning candidate had played a "dirty trick" on him.

A 20-member group will assist with the recount, which will start on March 12 and take about six days, Taiwan's media reported.

On Dec. 9 last year, Chen Chu from Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the race by a razor-thin margin of only 1,114 votes in an election in which 767,800 votes were cast.

Chen and his supporters held an unusual news conference late on the eve of the poll, at which they presented a videotape that purported to show that Huang was involved in buying votes.

Huang said this last-minute campaign ploy, aimed at smearing him and swaying voters towards Chen, was a "skillful fabrication".

Huang filed a lawsuit on Dec. 28 to invalidate the election, and after hearing the district court ruling expressed his confidence that justice would be done.

Source: Xinhua