Voters in Taiwan began heading to the polls on Saturday in an election widely expected to grant a second and final four-year term to incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen, a result that is bound to irk the government in Beijing which claims the island as its territory.
On a sunny day, long queues were seen outside polling stations.
President Tsai was spotted in a long line at an elementary school in Taipei where she cast her vote, Formosa Television reported.
Premier Su Tsang-chang waited for 40 minutes before casting his ballot.
He said that the process went well, encouraging people to go vote, state-run Central News Agency reported.
Tsai, 63, a staunch democrat critical of the authoritarian regime in China, has been boosted by anti-Beijing sentiment among the population of the self-governing democratic island.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s plan to put Taiwan under the same system applied to former British colony Hong Kong, which was returned to Chinese control in 1997, riled the Taiwan population last year.
The anti-China mood further increased due to Beijing’s hard-line stance on the protests in Hong Kong that started in June.
Tsai’s centrist and independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is currently in government and is seeking to consolidate its position in Saturday’s polls.
Tsai’s main challenger is Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu, 62, of the right-wing pro-China Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
With an everyman image, Han has vowed to revive the local economy.
The third presidential challenger, 77-year-old former KMT secretary-general James Soong, presidential candidate of the conservative People First Party, has largely been marginalized in the battle between Tsai and Han.
More than 17,000 polling stations around the island open for eight hours from 8 am to 4 pm (0000-0800 GMT). About 19.3 million voters above the age of 20 – including, critically, 1.18 million young first-time voters – are eligible to elect their president and 113 legislators.
In January 2016, Tsai became Taiwan’s first female leader and her DPP also formed an unprecedented parliamentary majority. (dpa/NAN)
