New Delhi: Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen resigned as the head of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party following local election losses suffered by her party, news agency AP reported.
Chiang Wan-an, the Nationalist party's mayoral candidate, won the seat in capital Taipei. "I will let the world see Taipei's greatness," he said in his victory speech on Saturday night.
According to the report, Tsai offered her resignation on Saturday evening, a tradition after a major loss, after delivering a short speech in which she also thanked the supporters.
Tsai said she will shoulder the responsibility as she had hand-picked candidates in Saturday’s elections.
As per the report, Kao Hung-an, a candidate in the relatively new Taiwan People's Party, won the mayoral seat in Hsinchu, home to many of Taiwan's semi-conductor companies.
While political experts and the ruling party have tried to link the elections to the long-term existential threat that is Taiwan’s neighbour, several local experts do not think China, which claims the island as its territory to be annexed by force, if necessary, has any major role to play in these elections.
“The international community has raised the stakes too high. They’ve raised a local election to this international level, and Taiwan’s survival,” AP quoted Yeh-lih Wang, a political science professor at National Taiwan University, as saying.
Notably, candidates from the Nationalist party won the mayoral seat in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, as well as in Taoyuan, Taichung and New Taipei city.
“The public has some dissatisfaction with the DPP on this, even though Taiwan has done well relatively speaking in pandemic prevention,” Weihao Huang, a political science professor at National Sun Yat-sen University, said.