The KMT emerged as the big winner in yesterday's elections for the nation's township representatives and village and borough wardens, taking more than 50 percent of the seats.
In the election of village and borough wardens, the KMT took 3,960 seats out of the 7,360 up for grabs, winning 53.8 percent of the total number of seats.
Independent candidates won 3,240, or 44.02 percent, of the posts.
The DPP won 129 seats and the PFP 22.
In the elections for township representatives, the KMT won 1,862 of the 3,717 posts, taking 50.1 percent of the total.
Independent candidates took 1,598 seats for township representatives, while the DPP secured only 192 posts and PFP 59. The New Party won 2 seats.
The elections, which did not include Taipei City, saw 20,476 candidates vie for the village and borough warden positions, while 7,297 candidates were after the job of township representative.
In areas where candidates tied for the number of votes, a draw will take place tomorrow to determine the lucky winner, according to the Central Election Commission.
The elections saw a strengthened police presence at polling stations to monitor possible bribery, election-related violence and any violations that could affect election fairness.
Order at polling stations was generally smooth with only occasional disputes and violations of election laws, such as voting on behalf of others and tearing-up ballots after having miscircled the name of a candidate.
However, prior to yesterday's voting, more than 3,000 election-related disturbances were reported to prosecutors' offices nationwide.
Nearly 4,000 people are alleged to have been involved in vote-buying. In Tainan County, one candidate for village head was killed.
While 463 borough wardens were elected in Kaohsiung, Taipei City, didn't take part in yesterday's election.
In April, the Taipei City Council in its Autonomous Regulation Governing Taipei City Borough Organization moved to postpone the city's borough-warden election -- originally scheduled for yesterday along with the rest of Taiwan -- until the city's borough boundaries have been redrawn.
Though the Executive Yuan overruled the Taipei City Government's decision to postpone the elections, the Taipei City Government refused take part in yesterday's polls because it had applied for an interpretation by the Council of the Grand Justices earlier last month under Article 83 of the Law on Local Government Systems (
Taiwan has held elections for village and borough wardens as well as that of the township representatives under this law every four years for the past five decades.
In 1996, National Development Conference moved to abolish the municipal elections out of concern they were too corrupt, however the move was later rejected by the then-KMT government.
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