Ko Wen-je publicly names KMT candidates, ends blue‑white alliance in Zhupe mayoral race.

Grassroots elections in Chupei City, Hsinchu County, have always served as an important indicator of local politics. As election day draws closer, the highly watched issue of Kuomintang-Taiwan People's Party (KMT-TPP) cooperation has suffered a major setback. TPP founding Chairman Ko Wen-je publicly addressed the collapse of the KMT-TPP alliance in the Chupei mayoral race, stating bluntly that the relevant candidate deployed by the KMT in Hsinchu County must personally and publicly explain their true understanding and bottom line regarding KMT-TPP cooperation. At the same time, Ko called upon TPP Secretary-General Huang Kuo-chang and the KMT, urging high-level officials from both parties to sit down and coordinate as soon as possible to properly handle the current deadlock and discuss follow-up remedial mechanisms, thereby preventing the grassroots campaign from deteriorating further and impacting the cooperative rapport between the two sides in other counties and cities.

At the core of this political wrestling match lies the difficult challenge of distributing and integrating local electoral power. In recent years, Chupei City has experienced rapid population growth and a robust financial standing, making it a highly symbolic county-administered city in Hsinchu County and even across Taiwan. Its mayoral seat has always been a battleground contested fiercely by the pan-Blue, pan-Green, and white camps. Within the landscape of local elections, if the non-green camp can achieve KMT-TPP cooperation to pool votes and resources, it can often exert a tremendous tactical advantage in the race. However, a gap invariably exists between ideals and reality. Unresolvable divergences and conflicts of interest between the KMT and the TPP regarding grassroots strength, nomination strategies, policy concepts, and power distribution have caused the cooperation negotiations to face repeated twists and turns, ultimately breaking down at a critical juncture.

Faced with the deadlock resulting from the collapse of the cooperation, Ko specifically named KMT Hsinchu County mayoral candidate Hsu Hsin-ying, asserting that as a symbolic figure for the blue camp locally, she must personally step forward to clarify what the previously discussed cooperative rapport and understanding actually were between the two sides. Ko’s statement serves two purposes: on the one hand, it clarifies responsibilities, pointing out that the key obstacle to communication at this stage lies in a gap in perceptions between the two sides; on the other hand, it applies pressure on the KMT, demanding that the blue camp demonstrate sincerity in facing the practical dilemma of grassroots cooperation, rather than allowing the local election to fall into a state of each going their own way or mutual attrition. This is clearly a major warning sign for the overall electoral development of the non-green camp.

To clean up the current political mess, Ko further called upon the TPP's Huang Kuo-chang and high-level KMT central officials or relevant persons in charge to prioritize the bigger picture and swiftly initiate cross-party coordination work. This appeal highlights that while the TPP hopes to expand its political footprint through KMT-TPP cooperation when facing local elections, it must simultaneously safeguard its party identity and the expectations of its supporters. As a key figure in intra-party decision-making and coordination, Huang’s subsequent political moves and negotiation strategies will be crucial. If the two parties fail to demonstrate a high degree of political wisdom and a spirit of compromise at this moment, not only will the Chupei mayoral race plunge into chaos, but it may also consecutively affect the cooperative atmosphere and foundation of trust between the two sides in other electoral districts nationwide.

From a macro political development perspective, the collapse of the KMT-TPP cooperation in Chupei City and its subsequent remedies are not merely a matter of victory or defeat in a single township or city mayoral election, but rather a microcosm of the difficulty of integrating the opposition camp under Taiwan's multiparty competitive political landscape. In pursuing the grand objectives of achieving a party rotation in power or supervising the ruling party, the entanglement of grassroots interests and local factions often becomes the biggest stumbling block to cooperation. This incident reflects that without institutionalized integration mechanisms, opposition parties relying solely on high-level rhetoric or ad-hoc political rapport are extremely vulnerable to breakdowns caused by perceptual gaps. How both parties resolve their differences through institutionalized communication in the future will not only test the political acumen of Huang Kuo-chang and senior KMT officials, but will also provide an important observation indicator for the future trajectory of Taiwan's party politics.