In Taiwan elections were held on Saturday for County Magistrates, County Councillors and Township Governors. The full results are available in English on the Central Electoral Commission website. The KMT party currently holds the presidency and a legislative majority, having won the presidency from the DPP last year. However, President Ma’s opinion poll ratings have been low.

In the County Magistrates election, there was the following result:

KMT – 47.9%
DPP – 45.3%
Independents/non-affiliated – 6.4%

These are the combined figures. In fact, the County Magistrates election comprises the direct election of 17 County Magistrates, 12 of which were won by the KMT, 4 by the DPP and one by an Independent. This meant that the KMT lost two seats, one to the DPP (even though it was an historic DPP seat that had been lost in 2005) and one to an independent candidate who had been expelled from the KMT over corruption allegations.

In the election for County Councillors, the following result obtained:

KMT – 43.9% (289 seats)
DPP – 24.4% (128 seats)
Independents/non-affiliated – 30.8% (170 seats)
Other parties – 5 seats

The key figure note as regards County Councillor elections is that number of DPP seats increased from 107 in 2005.

Finally, in the election for Township Governors, there was the following result:

KMT – 48.8% (121 seats)
DPP – 20.0% (34 seats)
Independents/non-affiliated – 30.9% (56 seats)

Overall, the results were seen as a poor performance by the KMT. President Ma is quoted by Taiwan News as saying: “No matter whether looking at the results from the number of seats or the share of the vote, the outcome of the election was not ideal”.