ELECTION 2024/KMT's Hou concedes defeat in Taiwan presidential election (update)

Taipei, Jan. 13 (CNA) Opposition Kuomintang (KMT) presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜) has conceded defeat in the 2024 presidential campaign after losing to Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

At around 8 p.m. Saturday, Hou appeared onstage at a vote-counting venue in New Taipei's Banqiao District to address his supporters. He congratulated Lai and his running mate Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) on their victory.

He said he was sorry for letting his supporters down as he was unable to win the presidency to end the DPP's eight-year rule.

He called for a unified Taiwan following Saturday's elections while asking Lai to listen to the voice of the people.

With 99.99 percent of Taiwan's 17,795 polling stations reporting as of 9:44 p.m., Hou had 4,670,335 votes, or 33.49 percent.

Lai garnered 5,585,462 votes, or 40.05 percent, while Taiwan People's Party (TPP) candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) had 3,689,951 votes, or 26.46 percent.

The final result will be officially announced by the Central Election Commission (CEC) later Saturday night.

Meanwhile, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) also showed up alongside with Hou and other top-ranking party members. Chu, however, did not speak or announce his resignation to take responsibility for the defeat, a routine practice for a party leader following a defeat in a major election.

Once officially approved by the CEC, Lai's victory will bring about a third consecutive four-year term for the DPP in office, unprecedented for any party in the Republic of China (Taiwan's official name) since the country held its first direct presidential election in 1996.

Hou had lagged behind Lai and even behind the TPP's Ko at times in the polls since announcing his candidacy in May. A senior KMT member attributed Hou's loss to the relatively late start of Hou's presidential bid and the inability of Hou and Ko to form a joint presidential ticket in November.

The New Taipei mayor was widely considered to be the odds-on KMT presidential nominee after winning re-election as mayor in November 2022 by a 25-point margin.

But having just won a second term, Hou was reluctant to announce his presidential bid for several months to avoid alienating voters who had just given him another four years as head of New Taipei.

That did not prevent Hou's candidacy from getting off a rough start. After the KMT "drafted" him to be the party's nominee, a split immediately emerged within the KMT-led "pan-blue" camp as business tycoon Terry Gou (郭台銘), who had also sought the nomination but was snubbed, decided to make an independent run.

Though Gou ultimately decided in November not to go through with his candidacy, his decision not to back Hou created a rift that left Hou with too much ground to make up, and forced him to spend too much time consolidating his own base rather than appealing to a broader coalition of voters.

Starting in May and in the months that followed, Hou garnered only about 20 percent support, not only trailing Lai by double digits but consistently polling behind Ko by about 5 to 7 points.

His chance to win the presidency seemed even slimmer when the KMT failed to pair up with TPP's Ko for a joint presidential ticket in November.

Instead, Hou picked Jaw Shau-kong (趙少康), chairman of Taiwan's Broadcasting Corporation of China and veteran political talk show host to be his running mate.

The Hou-Jaw ticket led to a rebound in support into late December as KMT heavyweights, including former Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) and former Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), helping consolidate pan-blue support, the source said.

However, Hou's inability to effectively respond to the DPP's attack on his wife's Taipei property that served as a university student dorm and its efforts to paint him as being too close to China dealt major blows to his campaign that made it impossible to make up the deficit in the polls, the source said.