According to KMT Vice Chairman Chan Chuen-po, Ma was deeply sorry for the incident caused by his careless action and he felt it was necessary for him to offer an apology to the public.

Ma's apology was later also forwarded to each of the party's legislators through mobile text messaging.

While addressing a meeting of the KMT's Central Standing Committee held in the northeastern county of Yilan Wednesday, Ma mentioned the results of a survey released a day earlier by local media on the Dec. 5 elections for county magistrates and city mayors.

The move was later discovered to have violated the Public Officials Election and Recall Law, which forbids the publication of any pre-election survey results from 10 days before the voting day.

The law also prohibits political parties and individuals from reporting, circulating, commenting on or citing such information during that period.

Chan explained that Ma cited the survey results because he did not realize that the ban had already become effective at that time.

Chan said according to his knowledge, the electoral authorities in Yilan have noticed the matter and will look into it. The KMT will respect any ruling made by the authorities, he added.

Meanwhile, Cabinet spokesman Su Jun-pin said he believes the Central Election Commission (CEC) will deal with the incident according to the law.

The opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) , however, demanded that the CEC punish Ma and the KMT immediately.

DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen said she has observed that Ma has been rather unmindful in handling certain issues recently, which she argued is the result of the president grasping more power after assuming the chairmanship of his party.

Tsai said the president should be stopped from using administrative resources to boost his party's election campaigns and he should also forbid his staff from abusing public resources for campaigning.

(By Lee Shu-hua, Sophia Yeh, Kelven Huang and Y.F. Low)