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Lawrence Chung

A rupture between Taiwan’s two opposition parties over a mayoral race threatens to spill into November’s elections and erode the fragile trust underpinning their potential 2028 alliance.
The main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have both registered candidates for mayor of Zhubei, the biggest city in Hsinchu county, after weeks of negotiations failed to produce a joint contender.
The KMT has nominated Hsinchu county councillor Wu Hsu-chih, while the TPP’s Chiu Chen-yuan, a former deputy mayor of Hsinchu city, registered on Thursday and vowed to stay in the race.
The confrontation has exposed sharply different interpretations of an earlier understanding over electoral cooperation, prompting warnings that the dispute could hurt the opposition in Zhubei, the Hsinchu county magistrate race and other battlegrounds.
More importantly, analysts said it could damage the mutual trust the KMT and TPP would need to jointly challenge the ruling Democratic Progressive Party in the 2028 election for the island’s highest office.
“An election is like a battlefield. A seemingly insignificant split can produce a ‘butterfly effect’,” said Chang Yuan-hsiang, a political science professor at Soochow University in Taipei.
He warned that the dispute could become “the first domino” to fall in the November local elections and eventually undermine cooperation between the opposition parties in 2028.
To set fire to an entire forest for the sake of one tree – frankly, even today I still cannot understand why this has happened
Huang Kuo-chang, TPP chairman
Zhubei is no ordinary local battleground. Chang described the affluent technology hub as the “diamond in the crown” of Hsinchu county.
Home to more than 220,000 people – nearly 40 per cent of the county’s population – Zhubei has benefited from the Hsinchu Science Park and its concentration of semiconductor, technology, biomedical and artificial intelligence (AI) industries.
Its younger population and large number of technology workers have also made it fertile ground for voters outside the traditional KMT-DPP divide.
In the 2024 election for the island’s top leadership position, then TPP chairman Ko Wen-je won more than 38 per cent of the vote in Zhubei. In the simultaneous legislative party-list ballot, the TPP secured 32.6 per cent there, narrowly ahead of the KMT’s 31.9 per cent.
Those numbers are central to the TPP’s anger.
TPP chairman Huang Kuo-chang said the parties had a long-standing understanding that his party would not contest the Hsinchu county magistrate race and would support KMT candidate Hsu Hsin-ying, while the TPP would field the candidate for Zhubei mayor.
Huang acknowledged there was no agreement “in black and white” but said the arrangement had been repeatedly confirmed.
He accused the KMT of failing to honour its commitment after the party’s chairwoman, Cheng Li-wun, told him last week that she was unable to resolve the Zhubei dispute.
“To set fire to an entire forest for the sake of one tree – frankly, even today I still cannot understand why this has happened,” Huang said.
The KMT sees the matter differently. It held a primary in June that Wu won and has argued that cooperation should mean selecting the strongest candidate, potentially through opinion polling, rather than automatically conceding the race.
Local KMT figures also believe Wu can win Zhubei and question why the party should surrender a winnable constituency.
Hsu’s office has denied breaking any promise, saying she remained committed to the parties “jointly fielding a candidate”, but stopping short of acknowledging an agreement to yield Zhubei to the TPP.
Ko, the TPP’s founder and former Taipei mayor, said Cheng should personally resolve the dispute with Huang, warning that failure to do so could affect cooperation in areas including Yilan and New Taipei.

KMT legislator Lee Yen-hsiu has similarly warned of a “butterfly effect”, saying protest votes from angry supporters could become “the last straw” for blue-white cooperation, referring to the KMT and TPP’s respective colours.
For the KMT, however, the bigger danger may lie beyond Zhubei.
Analysts said the KMT risked winning small but losing big, as TPP supporters – particularly Zhubei’s large pool of independent voters – could not be expected simply to switch to the KMT if Chiu withdrew, with some potentially backing the DPP in the closely fought Hsinchu county magistrate race.
“Winning on the small battlefield of Zhubei but losing on the large battlefield [across Taiwan] would not be worth it,” said Lin Yu-fang, a former legislator and senior official at the National Policy Foundation, a KMT-affiliated think tank. Lin added that the KMT could “win the battle but lose the war”.
He suggested that KMT chairwoman Cheng should persuade Wu to withdraw.
“The KMT relies on TPP cooperation in the legislature and would need its support in numerous local races – and potentially in 2028,” Lin said.
Analysts said the 2028 contest was ultimately the more important consideration.
“With Ko unable to run because of the corruption case against him and Huang currently uncompetitive in opinion polls, the TPP would face difficulties mounting a competitive bid,” Chang said.
But without its own candidate at the top of the ticket to boost its party-list vote, the TPP would also need concessions to preserve its political influence, he added.
Chang noted that the TPP had proposed three principles for future cooperation: a formal agreement between the parties, a comprehensive primary process and a coalition government.
Such an arrangement could preserve the TPP’s role even if its candidate did not head a joint opposition ticket. But it would require considerably more trust than is evident in Zhubei.
“If the KMT continues to adopt a ‘big brother’ mentality and refuses to make concessions, causing blue-white cooperation to collapse once again, [William] Lai Ching-te will be the one who ultimately benefits,” Chang said, referring to the island’s leader.


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China

Politics

Dispute between TPP and KMT over tech hub candidates could have ‘butterfly effect’ and spill into other battlegrounds, analysts say


Dispute between TPP and KMT over tech hub candidates could have ‘butterfly effect’ and spill into other battlegrounds, analysts say.


Cheng Li-wun

Huang Kuo-chang

William Lai Ching-te

Kuomintang

Taiwan’s opposition parties split over mayoral race, threatening 2028 election alliance

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Dispute between TPP and KMT over tech hub candidates could have ‘butterfly effect’ and spill into other battlegrounds, analysts say

Dispute between TPP and KMT over tech hub candidates could have ‘butterfly effect’ and spill into other battlegrounds, analysts say