Legislature Vice President Hung Hsiu-chu is now eligible to represent the ruling party – the Kuomintang (KMT) – in the 2016 presidential elections. That’s after she passed the 30% threshold in three opinion polls on Friday and Saturday.
Hung was the only KMT member to register to run in the primary, but party rules required that she also get at least 30% support in the opinion polls before she can be nominated. The three polls by independent organizations measured Hung's overall approval rating and how she would fare running against the Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen. The final results were an average of the two scenarios in all three polls.
The KMT announced on Sunday that Hung’s approval rating was 46.2%.
Hung thanked her supporters during a press conference at KMT headquarters. She said passing the polls is only the first step and that she can move forward with confidence to secure the nomination.
Hung said she expects the KMT's national party convention on July 19 to formally pick her as the party's presidential candidate. She said that an election between two women would mark a new page in the development of Taiwan’s democracy.