Taiwan’s incumbent president has taken a strong lead in his bid for the second term, according to local television stations, after polls closed in the country’s presidential and parliamentary elections.
With about half of the votes counted on Saturday, Ma, a 61-year-old former justice minister and mayor of the capital, Taipei, had 52.3 per cent of the vote, with Tsai Ying-wen of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] at 44.9 per cent, according to ETTV and other stations.
The official result is due some time after 8pm (1200 GMT). The TV stations did not give sources for their figures
while the Central Election Commission put the candidates closer but with a much smaller total of votes counted.
A third candidate, James Soong, a former heavyweight in Ma’s Kuomintang (KMT) party, had just 2.9 per cent of the vote.
Ma has staked his re-election on his success in tying Taiwan’s high-tech economy closer to China’s lucrative markets, while Tsai has attempted to galvanise resentment over growing income inequality and undermining of Taiwan’s sovereignty.
Voting closed at 4pm local time on Saturday.
About 18 million of island’s voters across 15,000 polling stations queued to choose between Ma and his main challenger, Tsai Ing-wen, a China-sceptic.
Taiwan’s sovereignty
Ma and Tsai, both former law academics with doctorates
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