The ruling party of Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian has suffered a massive loss in the weekend’s parliamentary elections. The nationalist Kuomintang, or KMT, and its smaller allies, captured a total of 86 seats in the 113-member parliament – to just 27 for President Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party. On Saturday night, the president resigned as chairman of his party.
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Here’s what he had to say. “As we face what could be described as the greatest disaster since the founding of the Democratic Progressive Party, I have no excuse. I hereby announce that I’m resigning from my duties as party chairman with immediate effect.”
A spokeswoman for the DPP, Hsiao Bee-kim, says Mr Chen resigned after his party failed to reach its goal of 50 seats.
“In a scenario when we came short of actually meeting even half of the goal that we have laid out, of course it is seen as a tremendous defeat in actual performance of the government it shows that we have not met the expectation of the people and thus President Chen does take responsibility for that.”
The result of the parlimentary elections bodes well for the KMT’s bid for the presidency in the March polls. For an analysis of the result, Adam Connors is speaking to Professor Chen Wen-hsien of National Chengchi University.
