Taiwan faces a three-way presidential contest in the new year

Taiwan faces a three-way presidential contest next January after the self-governing island’s two main opposition parties failed to back a joint candidate. Each party registered its own candidate on Friday, boosting the prospects of the frontrunner, vice-president Lai Ching-te from the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The development is a blow to Beijing because both opposition parties favour closer ties with mainland China, which views Mr Lai and outgoing president Tsai Ing-wen as separatists. Mr Lai has promised to maintain Ms Tsai’s hardline stance and her commitment to building up Taiwan’s military capacity.

The Kuomintang (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) announced at the start of this week that they had agreed to back an agreed candidate to take on Mr Lai. They said they would choose between the KMT’s Hou Yu-ih and the DPP’s Ko Wen-je on the basis of opinion polls.

But the deal fell apart in the days that followed and the two candidates traded insults at a joint press conference in Taipei on Thursday. Mr Ko protested when Mr Hou read out his private text messages and the two candidates bickered about the margin of error in the polls.

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As the argument over the polling became more heated, Mr Hou walked out of the room, bringing the press conference to an abrupt end. Foxconn founder Terry Gou, who had convened the press conference and tried to broker a deal between the two candidates, said it was a pity the meeting had not produced a better result on Thanksgiving Day.

Mr Gou withdrew his own candidacy for the presidency on Friday, weeks after China opened a tax investigation into Foxconn, a move some interpreted as an attempt to pressure him to get out of the race. Mr Gou launched his bid in August, saying he wanted to ensure that Taiwan should not become the next Ukraine on account of the DPP’s provocations of Beijing.

“Terry Gou may be forgotten by the people, but for the future of the Republic of China, I choose to sacrifice myself for the greater good. This is my utmost dedication to my homeland,” he said in a statement confirming his withdrawal from the race.

Mr Gou, who was trailing far behind the others in the polls did not say which of the remaining candidates he would back. A My Formosa poll conducted between November 20-22 put Mr Lai ahead with 31.5 per cent, followed by Mr Hou on 30.1 per cent and Mr Ko on 26.7 per cent.

Mr Ko is a former mayor of Taipei and Mr Hou was re-elected mayor of neighbouring New Taipei in a landslide last year, although he has stepped aside to run for the presidency. A former police officer, Mr Hou has spoken in favour of the so-called 1992 Consensus that agrees that there is one China but allows for different interpretations of what it means.