KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun has pushed back against media reports, saying that claims she barred KMT legislators from campaigning for Chiu Chen-yuan, the Taiwan People's Party candidate for Zhubei mayor, were taken entirely out of context and amounted to negative news for KMT-TPP relations.

• After the collapse of KMT-TPP cooperation in the Zhubei mayoral race, reports emerged that Cheng had ordered party legislators at a closed-door internal meeting not to campaign for Chiu Chen-yuan.
• Cheng said the session in question was a confidential meeting whose contents should not have been leaked, and that the portions made public departed entirely from the original focus of the discussion.
• She said the relevant decision had been assessed by the Hsinchu County party branch weeks earlier and conveyed to the legislators, and that TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang had long been aware of it and had expressed understanding.
• She denied Legislator Hsu Chiao-hsin's account that "only Cheng Li-wun objected while Hsu Hsin-ying agreed," calling it untrue and saying the source of the information was problematic.
• She called on party members not to speak on the candidate's behalf, lest their remarks diverge from the facts and give others an opening to exploit.

Outlook: The KMT-TPP rift in Zhubei will be difficult to mend in the short term, and the two parties may continue trading barbs over the breakdown in coordination in the run-up to the election.