Taiwan People's Party Zhubei mayoral candidate Chiu Chen-yuan has formally registered his candidacy, effectively signalling the collapse of integration efforts with the Kuomintang — bad news for supporters hoping for opposition cooperation.

• Chiu completed his registration this morning, stressing that inter-party negotiations had run their course and that the campaign should return to a contest of candidates' competence and policies.
• KMT candidate Wu Hsu-chih said the door to cooperation had not been closed, and Hsu Hsin-ying, the party's candidate for Hsinchu County magistrate, also called for integration efforts to continue up to the last moment before the November vote.
• Chiu said the TPP has its own values to defend in local elections, and that the party's central leadership hopes to contain the dispute at the Hsinchu County level.
• If the two parties each field their own candidate, it would split the opposition vote in Zhubei, working to the advantage of the Democratic Progressive Party.

Outlook: Pressure for a KMT-TPP deal in Zhubei will persist up to the vote at the end of November, but both sides have now registered and are running their own campaigns.