Taiwan's local election registrations are turning messy for the ruling DPP, with a convicted councillor running anyway and party infighting spilling into public view.

• Taipei city councillor Chen Yi-chun, sentenced to nearly eight years for falsely claiming assistant salaries, was suspended by the DPP for two and a half years and stripped of her primary spot — she registered to run anyway, in tears, without party backing.
• Her independent bid could split the green vote in Taipei's Zhongshan-Datong district, where the DPP is running four other candidates.
• Taipei mayor Chiang Wan-an is under fire because his son won a city-funded exchange programme to the US despite holding American citizenship; Chiang gave up the subsidy, but the DPP is still pressing on conflict-of-interest rules.
• The KMT is fighting itself too: a former Hsinchu county chief publicly berated party chair Cheng Li-wen at a registration event, blaming her for a failed alliance with the TPP.
• In Hualien, the DPP is backing a candidate it did not nominate, while TPP founder Ko Wen-je refuses to say whether he will cooperate, calling the race hard to read.

Outlook: With registration closing, expect vote-splitting fights and the Chiang family scandal to dominate the run-up to the year-end local elections.