"He had been fooling us all along," Tsai said. "I thought we had seen eye to eye on the matter [of KMT-DPP cooperation], but he never reciprocated the goodwill."
Although Hong secured 106 ballots in the second round -- six more than the 100 seats held by the two "pan-green" parties -- he eventually lost to the KMT's Chiang by nine votes in the second round. In the first round, Hong received 108 votes, while Chiang won 111.
The second round was held because neither candidate managed to win an outright majority in the first.
Tsai added that there had been many occasions on which the DPP could have nominated its own candidate to compete with Wang since the Dec. 1 legislative election, but they didn't because they wanted to see legislative stability.
TSU Deputy Secretary-General Lin Jih-jia (
"It was such a cheap strategy that the KMT totally ignored the DPP's goodwill and threatened to revoke the membership of those who voted for non-KMT candidates," Lin said.
Lin also dismissed speculation that the election outcome had sabotaged the relationship between Wang and former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), who publicly endorsed the Wang-Hong pairing.
"I've heard no such thing from those higher up," Lin said.
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