Voters on the island of Taiwan recently went to the polls to determine who would represent them in their country’s local legislature and in an election that is seen as a test of popular will ahead of the country’s next election set for 2016. This critically important election is also seen as a referendum on the country’s growing closer ties with China under Taiwanese President Ma Ying Jeou.

In what is being seen as a stunning rebuke of increasingly close ties with mainland China, the people of Taiwan handed a major defeat to the ruling majority Kuomintang Party (KMT) who have advanced stronger ties with China. The Kuomintang has been steadily losing seats during recent votes, threatening its sixteen years leading the island from the capital city of Taipei.

“They’re making Taiwan far too dependent on the mainland. Their policy making muscle is far too focused on cross-straight ties and not nearly enough on raising the standard of living of the average Taiwanese person” Kuo-Hsin tai a 40 year old photo copy shop owner said. Like many locals, Kuo-Hsin is a former supporter of the ruling Kuomintang party now “disillusioned” with the ruling party.

According to the Central Election Commission website, there were a total of 11,130 seats which were involved in the election and included, 1) 6 seats for municipal mayor, 2) 375 seats for municipal councilor, 3) 50 seats for Councilors of indigenous districts in municipalities, 4) 16 seats for County mayor, 5) 532 seats for County councilors, 6) 198 seats for township chiefs, 7) 2,096 seats for township councilors, 8) 7,851 seats for chiefs of villages.

How to Distance Taiwan from Beijing

In the final exit polls, the ruling Kuomintang Party won a recent low of just 40.7% of the electoral vote while the challenging Democratic Progressive Party won 47.6% of the vote. “The walls of ideology are about to fall” victorious challenger Ko Wen Je said according to Bloomberg , he continued by saying, “This is the time for the people to rule”.

In response to the election results, a majority of the Kuomintang Party resigned on Monday. “I must express apologies to the Nationalist party and its supporters for making everyone disappointed” Kuomintang Party leader Ma Jing Jeou read in a statement in response to election results. “As the cabinet is now entering into the caretaker period, I want to implore you to continue carrying out your roles until the new cabinet is formed, hopefully that period won’t last too long”, Premier Jiang Yi Huah read in a statement before his party’s cabinet resigned on Monday.

China will need to take this Taiwanese election seriously as they continue to try to continue to build Communist Party influence in its neighbor. The Chinese still consider themselves to be the sole legal representatives of Taiwan, officially the 23rd province of China. But as this year’s elections continue to show, trying to bring the former territories back into China’s sphere of influence will be difficult.