The candidate of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Chiang Wa An, has won in Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, in the framework of the local elections held on Saturday on the island when the vote count is already close to 65 percent.
For his part, the candidate of the Democratic Democratic Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), former Health Minister Chen Shih Chung, has acknowledged defeat and congratulated Chiang for his victory in the capital.
Likewise, Chiang has already delivered a victory speech in which he thanked for the support received and assured that he will work for all the citizens of the capital, including all those who did not vote for him.
According to the Taiwanese news agency Central News Agency (CNA), Chang has so far obtained 42.23 percent of the votes, just over ten percentage points more than Cheng, who has managed to convince 32 percent of the electorate.
Although Cheng is highly appreciated by the Taiwanese population for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, he began to accumulate criticism as early as last year, when the island’s administration faced difficulties in procuring vaccines and, in May, a major outbreak of infections was confirmed.
As the polling progresses, the KMT is emerging as the main winner of the day, winning four of the island’s six major cities, as well as nine of Taiwan’s other 15 smaller counties.
The DPP, on the other hand, has won in two large cities and three counties, according to CNA, which points out that these results comply with most of the forecasts made in the run-up to the polls.
Taiwan’s polling stations closed their doors at 16.00 hours (local time) in local elections in which more than 19 million people were called to participate. This same Saturday also voted the reduction of the minimum voting age from 20 to 18 years old.
Despite having enabled more than 17,600 polling stations, some citizens have encountered obstacles to cast their vote in the ballot box, especially after the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced fines of up to 62,000 euros for those infected with COVID-19 who broke the mandatory quarantine to vote in person.
According to the agency, Taiwan currently does not allow postal voting or similar, which means that people with coronavirus are strictly prohibited from voting. The CECC estimated that some 65,000 people were unable to participate in the election.
