Taiwan's opposition alliance between the KMT and the TPP is showing strain three months before local elections — bad news for both parties' hopes of unseating the ruling DPP.

• Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an will not campaign for individual TPP city council candidates, only a joint rally, to protect KMT seats in the same districts.
• TPP chair Huang Kuo-chang says he respects the decision but is losing patience over Zhubei, where neither side will drop its mayoral candidate.
• Huang pointedly said he wants KMT legislator Hsu Hsin-ying to keep her word and that he is holding back harsher words for now.
• Cooperation is smoother elsewhere — Huang describes close contact with New Taipei's Li Si-chuan and a joint governance forum in Taichung with Chiang Chi-chen.
• Cracks also showed in the legislature, where a TPP-backed euthanasia referendum failed without KMT support even as a nuclear restart measure passed.

Outlook: Expect more public pressure over the Zhubei standoff, with the alliance holding at the national level but fraying seat by seat as the vote nears.