The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People's Party (TPP) yesterday approved a cooperation agreement for November’s local elections, under which the two parties agreed to jointly field candidates.
The agreement was separately passed by the KMT's Central Standing Committee and the TPP's Central Committee.
Under the pact's "nominate first, coordinate later" model, the two parties would prioritize incumbent mayors or county commissioners seeking re-election.
Photo: CNA
The KMT and TPP would jointly nominate candidates only in cities and counties where both sides have negotiated and agreed to cooperate, the agreement says.
In selected jurisdictions, candidates would be selected using opinion polls, it says.
The agreement stipulates that unweighted samples must reflect distributions of gender, age, education level and geographic area, and pass a representativeness test showing no significant difference from the overall population, with a probability value below 0.05.
Other details, including polling firms, sample size, methodology and weighting, would be determined at a later date, the agreement says.
Each party would also assign three representatives to facilitate communication in negotiations between the party headquarters, and a joint KMT-TPP campaign group would be established to support candidates nationwide, it says.
At the KMT Central Standing Committee meeting, KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) expressed the hope that the agreement would help the two parties secure victory in the Nov. 28 local elections and serve as a foundation for cooperation in the 2028 presidential election.
The KMT and TPP would begin coordination in three areas where both have nominated candidates — New Taipei City, Yilan County and Chiayi City, TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said in a statement.
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