Taiwan opposition to discuss teaming up ahead of January election

TAIPEI - Taiwan's main opposition party the Kuomintang (KMT) said on Monday (Oct 9) that it was discussing ways to team up with another opposition group, the Taiwan People's Party (TPP), ahead of January's presidential and parliamentary elections.

The election is happening as China, which views Taiwan as its own territory, has been stepping up military and political pressure, seeking to assert its sovereignty claims.

Vice President William Lai, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) presidential candidate, has almost consistently led opinion polls, leaving the KMT's Hou Yu-ih and TPP's Ko Wen-je, a former Taipei mayor, to battle it out for second place.

Both the KMT, which traditionally favours close ties with China, and the TPP have floated the idea of working together to take down the DPP, but have been unable to agree on how to do that, including whether Hou or Ko should step down as their party's respective presidential candidate.

Hou's campaign team said it and the KMT's central office had decided to hold "preliminary consultations" with the TPP and called for both sides "to sit down together as soon as possible".

"As long as it is an issue of mutual concern, it can be discussed without preconditions," the statement added.

Ko has proposed both parties should use opinion polls to decide who should stand as president and who as vice president on a possible joint ticket, but the KMT has not been keen on that idea.

The KMT is Taiwan's largest opposition party, holding 38 out of 113 seats in parliament to the TPP's five. At a local level, the KMT also controls 14 of Taiwan's 22 city mayor and county chief positions, to the TPP's two.

Terry Gou, the retired billionaire founder of major Apple supplier Foxconn, is also running as an independent candidate for president but is at the bottom of the polls.

He has also proposed an opposition alliance against the DPP, but neither the KMT, whose presidential nomination he tried and failed to win earlier this year, nor the TPP have shown much sign of wanting to work with him.

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