Taiwan president resigns as party leader after election loss

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has resigned as head of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party following local election losses suffered by her party.

Ms Tsai offered her resignation on Saturday evening, a tradition after a major loss, in a short speech in which she also thanked supporters.

She said she will shoulder the responsibility as she had hand-picked candidates in Saturday’s elections.

Tsai spoke out many times about “opposing China and defending Taiwan” in the course of campaigning for her party.

But the party’s candidate Chen Shih-chung, who lost his battle for mayor of Taipei, only raised the issue of the Chinese Communist Party’s threat a few times before he switched back to local issues.

While international observers and the ruling party have attempted to link the elections to the long-term threat that is Taiwan’s neighbour, many local experts do not think China had a large role to play this time around.

“The international community has raised the stakes too high. They’ve raised a local election to this international level, and Taiwan’s survival,” said Yeh-lih Wang, a political science professor at National Taiwan University.