Taiwan's opposition leader is pushing back at the government over deadly flooding in the south, turning a disaster response into a political fight.

• Large parts of southern Taiwan are underwater after heavy rain, with Kaohsiung hit hard enough to force the KMT to move its own party meeting to Taipei.
• KMT chair Cheng Li-wun called on President Lai Ching-te and Premier Cho Jung-tai to drop party and regional politics and put everything into rescue and flood prevention.
• She accused the government of passing blame — the premier saying budget fights limited him to phone calls, and the president suggesting the south floods because it gets less flood-control money than the north.
• Her counterpunch: the DPP has run southern Taiwan for 30 years and the central government for close to 20, so yearly budgets that end in yearly floods point to bad policy or misspent money.
• She told KMT officials to stay at their posts and work across party lines, noting that in past disasters ordinary people showed up to help regardless of politics.

Outlook: The flood fallout is likely to feed straight into the coming local election campaign, with candidate registration already starting.