Taiwan 2020 Election Results

By Cedric Sam

Updated: January 11, 2020, 3:15 PM EST

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won a second term in a landslide victory over her opponent, Han Kuo-yu of the Kuomintang (KMT), and her party maintained its majority in the legislature.

Portrait of Tsai Ing-wen — Source: Taiwan Central Election Commission

Portrait of Han Kuo-yu — Source: Taiwan Central Election Commission

139% of Taiwan’s population lives in the island’s four northernmost counties around Taipei. Tsai performed well here again in a region that swung to the KMT during their 2008-16 rule.

2Han Kuo-yu was elected mayor of Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s No. 3 metro area and a DPP stronghold, in December 2018. He is the city’s first KMT mayor in 20 years, but Tsai won massively here in the 2020 presidential poll.

Sources: Taiwan Central Election Commission, Ministry of the Interior

Note: Rural islands including Lienchiang County and parts of Kinmen County are not shown.

Legislative Elections

Tsai’s DPP lost seven seats in the legislature, and the KMT gained three seats. Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s Taiwan’s People Party entered the Legislative Yuan with a strong showing of 1.5 million votes in the nationwide and overseas legislator election, against 4.8 million and 4.7 million for the DPP and KMT, respectively.

Past legislative election results

Proportion of seats

2020

2016

2012

2008

Notes: Total ballots for 2020 only include nationwide and overseas legislator election votes. For other years, multiple ballots are counted for each voter, for each seat system they’re eligible to vote for.

Source: Taiwan Central Election Commission

Starting in 2012, legislative elections have been held simultaneously with presidential ones. A constitutional amendment reforming the Legislative Yuan was passed in 2005 and since then the party that controlled Taiwan’s executive branch also controlled its legislative assembly.

Taiwan’s Parliament is elected by semi-proportional representation. Seventy-three members are elected in a first-past-the-post system from special municipalities, counties and cities. Of the remainder, 34 are chosen by proportional representation from lists proposed by political parties and six are elected by indigenous peoples.