Pro-China Party's Big Win in Taiwan Puts Tsai Future in Doubt
- Government humbled as opposition KMT sweeps local elections
- ‘It is time to take the shackles off’ with China: analyst
Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen holds a ballet before voting on Nov. 24.
Photographer: Chang Hau-an/AFP via Getty Images
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Taiwan’s pro-independence leader, Tsai Ing-wen, has just over a year to win back public support if she wants to avoid going down in history as the island’s first one-term president.
Her Democratic Progressive Party suffered a resounding loss to the China-friendly Kuomintang in local elections on Saturday. The scale of the defeat was far greater than forecast, with the DPP losing seven cities and counties of the 13 they held -- including its traditional bastions of Kaohsiung and Yilan.