Local polls in Taiwan ended in a "win-win" — a moderate victory for the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) party, and by extension for China, which finds its pro-Beijing stance easier to work with, analysts said.
Candidates of the KMT, the party of China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou, secured three out of five mayoral positions up for grabs, and in light of how much worse they could have fared, they should be happy, according to observers.
"It's a KMT win. In the worst-case scenario, KMT would only have won in one city," said Joseph Cheng, a political scientist at City University of Hong Kong.
The Saturday election, which was also for hundreds of lower-level political posts, was widely seen as the last major test of Ma's popularity among the electorate ahead of his re-election bid in 2012.
The election had been deemed extremely close in the key Taipei mayoral race, but in the end the KMT candidate won by a comfortable margin.
Several analysts attributed the result to a sympathy vote for the KMT after the son of one of its most prominent members, former vice president Lien Chan, was shot in the face at an election rally late Friday.
Sean Lien, himself a ranking KMT official, was reportedly out of danger after the shooting, which was apparently carried out by a member of Taiwan's underground acting on motives that are as yet unclear.
Nowhere have the elections been observed with greater interest than in Beijing, which wants reunification with Taiwan but knows it needs a friendly government in Taipei to further its ambitions.
"Beijing is concerned about the election in Taiwan and subsequent political developments on the island," said Cao Jingxing, a Taiwan expert at East China Normal University in Shanghai. "The result is what Beijing would like to see."
More than 10 million Taiwanese, out of a population of 23 million, were eligible to vote Saturday, making the poll the last major test of the public will ahead of presidential elections in 16 months.
Ma won a landslide victory in 2008 on a promise to lift the economy, mainly by improving relations with the mainland and unleash some of the pent-up trade potential between the two sides.
"Ma will continue to promote economic ties with China in his remaining time in office," said Chang Ya-chung, an expert on the island's politics at National Taiwan University.
Taiwan and China signed a historic economic framework agreement in late June, and have vowed to gradually expand their exchanges in areas like trade and investment.
It is a development that seems to have met with moderate support among the Taiwanese, who increasingly see connections with China as an inescapable fact of life.
The election result was less than hoped for by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which controlled the presidency from 2000 to 2008.
Since the DPP wants formal independence from China, its now-reduced chances of putting a man or a woman in Taipei's presidential palace in 2012 is likely to be greeted with quiet joy in Beijing.
"DPP's return to power in 2012 would result in tensions in the Taiwan Strait as the DPP is unlikely to give up its pro-independence platform," said George Tsai, a political scientist at Chinese Culture University.
But with more than a year to go before the presidential election, much can happen that will again change the fortunes of Taiwan's two major political parties.
"Both parties will readjust their plans for 2012 based on the election results, and the losing side will face a tougher challenge," said Cao, the Shanghai-based scholar.
"However, it is too early to say that the KMT will have the upper hand in the presidential election, and it is still going to be a tight race in 2012."
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