At stake in this election:

• 3 seats in the Legislative Yuan

Description of government structure:

• Chief of State: President MA Ying-jeou
• Head of Government: Premier WU Den-yih
• Assembly: Taiwan has a unicameral Legislative Yuan with 113 seats.

Description of electoral system:

• The President is elected by popular vote to serve a 4-year term.
• In the Legislative Yuan, 73 members are elected by plurality vote in single-member constituencies to serve 4-year terms, 34 members are elected through a closed-list proportional representation system to serve 4-year terms and 6 members are elected by single non-transferable vote to serve 4-year terms.***

*** Each voter has two votes: one in a single-member constituency or in one of two three-member constituencies representing indigenous groups (highland or lowland); one for a party list. Proportional representation seats are allocated nationwide with a 5 percent threshold. A gender quota of one half applies to party lists.

Main parties in the electoral race:

• Party: Kuomintang Party (KMT)
  • Leader: MA Ying-jeou
  • Seats won in last election: 81
• Party: Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
  • Leader: TSAI Ing-wen
  • Seats won in last election: 27

Population and number of registered voters:

• Population: 23,109,141 (November 2009 Source: Government of Taiwan)
• Registered Voters: 618,831 (January 2009 Total for Taoyuan county, Taichung county and Taidung county.)