At stake in this election:

• The office of President of Taiwan

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.
• The Premier is appointed by the President.
• 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 Candidates in the Presidential race:

• MA Ying-jeou
  • Party: Chinese Nationalist Party / Kuomintang 中國國民黨 (KMT)
• TSAI Ing-wen
  • Party: Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) / 民主進步黨: Mínzhǔ jìnbù dǎng
• James SOONG Chu-yu
  • Party: People First Party (PFP) / 親民黨

Population and number of registered voters:

• Population: 22,974,347 (July 2010 )
• Registered Voters: 17,313,854 (March 2008 )