Tsai Ing-wen wins DPP chair election (update)

Taipei, May 25 (CNA) The opposition Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP's) Tsai Ing-wen was elected as the party's chairwoman for a third time Sunday, after serving two two-year terms in the post between 2008 and 2012.

Tsai won a landslide victory against her only competitor, Kuo Tai-lin, in the vote for the party's new chief. She gained 93.71 percent of the vote.

After the election, Tsai had her office released a statement vowing to "immediately begin rebuilding trust in the party."

The 57-year-old former vice premier in the Chen Shui-bian government won her first term as DPP chairwoman in 2008 and got re-elected in 2012.

Saying she was aware there will not be a honeymoon period for her new term, "let us do our best to finish the last mile in our battle for gaining the ruling power," Tsai said in the statement.

"It was the urge to lead the party to regain society's trust and help Taiwan find its new path as well as the new momentum of development that prompted me to run for post," she added.

Kuo, for his part, called for unification of the party's various factions to give it a better chance of winning the year-end local elections.

According to DPP Central Committee statistics, a total of 143,527 party members are eligible voters in the election, with 65.13 percent of them casting their ballots.

Tsai garnered 93.71 percent or 85,410 of the votes, while Kuo snatched only 6.29 percent or 5,734 votes.

(By Chang Jung-hsiang and Elizabeth Hsu)ENDITEM/Jt/sc