Ma Ying-jeou to step down as KMT chairman

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou announced he would officially step down as chairman of the ruling Kuomintang party as of today in the aftermath of an island-wide rout in Saturday’s local elections, South China Morning Post reported. The decision is likely to ignite a power struggle within the party, since whoever is elected as the next chair would have a better chance of winning the party’s nomination to stand in the 2016 presidential election, analysts said. The party secured only one of the six key municipalities and kept five of the island’s 16 cities and counties in the latest elections, leading Premier Jiang Yi-huah and 81 members of his cabinet to resign on Monday.