Taiwan's opposition alliance between the KMT and the Taiwan People's Party has broken down in Hsinchu County, a setback for both parties heading into the year-end local elections.

• The TPP says the KMT and its Hsinchu County magistrate candidate Hsu Hsin-ying broke a promise to stand aside in the Zhubei mayoral race.
• The party has pulled all Hsinchu County races out of the two-year-old cooperation deal and will now pick its own partners there.
• TPP members who campaign for candidates from other parties face discipline up to expulsion, and elected officials cannot work with rival magistrate candidates.
• The trigger was a KMT county branch letter barring its own members from backing non-KMT candidates, which the TPP read as proof no trust was left.
• Hsu denies any deal to concede Zhubei ever existed; TPP chairman Huang Kuo-chang accused her of lying outright.

Outlook: Both parties will now run competing candidates in Zhubei, splitting the opposition vote and testing whether their national alliance survives elsewhere.