Cooperation between the opposition Kuomintang and Taiwan People's Party in Taiwan's Hsinchu County has formally broken down — bad news for both parties, and an unexpected opening for the Democratic Progressive Party's candidate.

• In the Zhubei City mayoral race, the KMT and the TPP have each registered candidates after talks on standing aside for one another collapsed.
• The TPP convened an emergency expanded meeting and decided to remove all elections in Hsinchu County from its cooperation agreement with the KMT.
• The trigger was conflicting accounts of whether a promise had been made to yield Zhubei, with TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang accusing the other side of lying.
• The KMT's Hsu Hsin-ying said the goal of cooperation remains unchanged: to win in 2026 and unseat the DPP in 2028.
• The DPP's Cheng Chao-fang said only that he respects other parties' internal affairs, and is campaigning on policy proposals and his record to win over voters.

Outlook: The KMT and TPP will now run separate campaigns in Hsinchu County, and the split in their vote base favours the DPP in the short term. Whether the two can sustain cooperation in other counties and cities is the next thing to watch.