Cooperation talks between the Taiwan People's Party and the Kuomintang over the Zhubei mayoral election have broken down, but Ko Wen-je played down the setback and gave a positive assessment of opposition integration ahead of the 2026 elections.

• The KMT and the TPP failed to reach agreement on a candidate for Zhubei mayor, and their cooperation was declared off.
• Ko Wen-je said talks had gone well in most cities and counties, including Yilan, New Taipei, Taichung, Chiayi and Changhua, with far more successes than failures.
• He stressed that no one should expect to "score 100 on the first try"; politics moves forward step by step, and a few individual cases should not be used to dismiss the whole.
• He broadened the focus to whether Taiwan is capable of establishing a coalition-government culture, citing the example of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party and the Ishin no Kai, which signed a cooperation agreement soon after the election.

Outlook: The KMT and the TPP will maintain cooperation in most cities and counties, while in a few constituencies such as Zhubei they will field their own candidates against each other; the actual results will not be clear until after the 2026 elections.