Cooperation between Taiwan's two opposition parties in the local elections has formally broken down in Zhubei City, Hsinchu County — bad news for the Taiwan People's Party and Kuomintang's plan to jointly challenge the Democratic Progressive Party.

• TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang said the two parties had originally agreed that the TPP would back the KMT's Hsu Hsin-ying in the county magistrate race while the KMT would leave the Zhubei mayoral race to a TPP candidate, but that the KMT failed to keep its promise.
• KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun responded that the situation in Zhubei was unusual and that the two sides differed in their assessments of possible candidates, but that the original intent behind the cooperation had not changed.
• The KMT's Zhubei candidate, Wu Hsu-chih, has already picked up his registration papers to run and said the party's central leadership never asked him to step aside.
• In New Taipei City, the latest polling shows the DPP's Su Chiao-hui leading the KMT's Lee Ssu-chuan by about 5 percentage points, though Lee's camp says its own internal polling still shows a steady lead.
• Political tempers have also flared over a constitutional dispute and food safety concerns, with Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an demanding that Premier Cho Jung-tai publicly apologise over the tainted cooking oil case.

Outlook: With the year-end local elections entering the registration phase, the KMT and TPP are each fielding a candidate in Zhubei, and whether the two parties can sustain their cooperation in other constituencies will be the key thing to watch going forward.