Taiwan elections 2024: president-elect William Lai faces new era with legislature in the balance

Neither of the heavyweight parties gained an absolute majority in the Legislative Yuan, handing the TPP swing votes for the first time

Whatever the fallout, passing bills will be much tougher for new leader Lai, analysts say

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The results from Taiwan’s elections on the weekend will make it much harder for the president to pass legislation, analysts say. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 9:01pm, 14 Jan 2024Updated: 5:31pm, 10 Apr 2024

Taiwan’s president-elect will confront a new political era on day one in office, facing the prospect of a hostile legislature that could hobble any pro-independence agenda for the island.

William Lai Ching-te, from the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, fended off his Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rivals in the presidential race on Saturday by winning 5.59 million votes or just over 40 per cent of the total.

But the DPP lost its majority in the 113-seat Legislative Yuan, retaining just 51 of its previous 61 seats while the KMT added 14 to have 52 lawmakers.

“This is a completely new scenario,” Ku Chung-hwa, a national policy adviser to President Tsai Ing-wen, said at a post-election forum in Taipei on Sunday morning.

“While having won the presidential election, the DPP is actually in a situation where it is a minority in both popular votes and in the legislature,” Ku said at the event hosted by Citizen Congress Watch, an independent watchdog.

It is the first time in 16 years that no party has had an absolute majority in the legislature, and the first time that a third party – the TPP with eight seats – has had a swing vote.