Taiwan held its first election in 2023 on Sunday to fill a legislative seat in Taipei left vacant after the Kuomintang’s (KMT) Chiang Wan-an (???) resigned to focus on his campaign for Taipei mayor, which he won in the local government elections on Nov. 26.
Voting in the legislative constituency which includes Zhongshan District and part of Songshan District, Taipei, began at 8 a.m. and will continue through 4 p.m.
A total of 267,965 residents in the voting district are eligible to cast their ballots in Sunday’s by-election, according to the Taipei City Election Commission.
The 233 polling stations set up for the by-election will begin counting ballots in the three-way race after 4 p.m., with KMT Taipei City Councilor Wang Hung-wei (???) facing ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Enoch Wu (???) and independent candidate Hsiao He-lin (???).
Wu ran and lost the legislative election in January 2020 to Chiang, who won a third four-year term by a margin of 6.04 percentage points.
In the 2016 legislative election, the KMT lost its majority in the Legislature for the first time, winning 35 of the 113 seats, while the DPP took 68.
On Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m., Wang was accompanied by Chiang and KMT Legislator Fai Hrong-tai (???) to cast her vote at one of the six polling stations in Minsheng Junior High School in Songshan District.
However, Wang forgot to bring the identification card voters are required to present to election officials in order to collect the ballot. She came back with her ID card and cast her vote sometime after 11 a.m.
Chiang voted at Yongan Elementary School in Zhongshan District, where Wu also cast his ballot accompanied by his family, who lives in the area.
Sunday’s election is one of two by-elections scheduled after the local government elections in November. The second by-election will take place in Nantou County in March, after KMT Legislator Hsu Shu-hua (???) won the Nov. 26 election and was sworn in on Dec. 25 as the magistrate of the central Taiwan county.
The by-election in Nantou County is scheduled for March 4, the Central Election Commission announced on Dec. 27.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel