Taiwan’s Lai Ching-te elected president in ‘victory for democracies’

Taiwanese Vice President Lai Ching-te, the ruling Democratic Progressive Occasion’s decide for president, will turn out to be the island’s subsequent chief after taking an insurmountable lead in Saturday’s election — a win that might set the stage for continued confrontation with China.

The achievement — described by Lai as a “victory for the neighborhood of democracies” — marks a historic third-straight win for the DPP and highlights not solely the Taiwanese individuals’s approval of the independence-minded occasion’s robust stance on China, but additionally the rejection of the opposition’s plans to re-engage with Beijing amid worsening cross-strait relations.

Official outcomes from the Central Electoral Fee confirmed that the 64-year-old Lai, lengthy the front-runner within the election, had secured over 40% of the roughly 13.9 million votes solid in a ballot that noticed a turnout of 70.6%.