Negotiations between the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People's Party over the Zhubei City race in Hsinchu County have formally broken down, dealing a blow to the two parties' broader cooperation in the year-end local elections.

• Hsu Hsin-ying, the KMT's nominee for Hsinchu County magistrate, said the TPP had never made a concrete commitment to back a primary, and denied that the KMT had ever planned to cede the Zhubei mayoral race to the TPP.
• TPP Secretary-General Chou Yu-hsiu hit back, saying her account was far removed from the facts and amounted to reversing the story after candidate registration had closed.
• The TPP said it had repeatedly encountered new problems and new justifications during the talks and had waited patiently, but that no agreement was ultimately reached.
• The collapse has been described as damaging to the mutual trust the two parties built over the past two years, with knock-on effects for opposition cooperation in other cities and counties.

Outlook: Integration talks between the KMT and the TPP in other cities and counties are likely to become harder to advance, and the Zhubei mayoral contest will now feature a split opposition field.