Taiwan’s ruling party – the Kuomintang (KMT) – held its annual national congress in the southern city of Chiayi on Sunday to drum up support ahead of the year-end elections.
The November elections are set to be the largest local elections in Taiwan’s history, with 11,130 seats up for grabs.
President Ma Ying-jeou, the KMT’s chairman, presided over the congress, stumping for his party’s 22 candidates in the mayoral and county chief elections.
The national congress passed a mission statement on Sunday afternoon which said that it was vital for the KMT’s candidates to win in order to prevent Taiwan from being economically marginalized. The statement said that the government had been proactively supporting several trade deals with China, and that a boycott by the opposition parties had put a dent in Taiwan’s international competitiveness.
The KMT is calling on all of its candidates to promote the party platform, and to work together to win in the year-end elections. The party says the goal is to build a strong foundation in order to increase the KMT’s chances in the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for 2016.