Taiwan's incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen has won the 2020 Taiwan presidential election, and will serve another term.

Received more votes than the 2016 election

According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), preliminary results showed that Tsai and her running mate William Lai had received over 7.93 million votes, at least 57 per cent.

Her closest challenger, Kuomintang's (KMT) Han Kuo-yu and his running mate Simon Chang received over 5.2 million votes, or about 38.5 per cent, according to journalist Ezra Cheung.

Han said that he had called Tsai to concede the election. According to SCMP, he said:

"My personal efforts were not enough, and I let down all of your expectations. On Monday I will return to the Kaohsiung city to go back to work. I continue to carry the responsibility on my shoulders.”

Meanwhile, People First Party's presidential candidate James Soong received over 570,000 votes, or four per cent of the vote.

Did better than her last campaign

In the 2016 presidential election, Tsai, who is Taiwan's first female president, won by an overwhelming majority of 6,894,744 votes (56.1 per cent).

Her challenger back then, KMT candidate Eric Chu, came in second with only 3,813,365 votes (31 per cent).

Although Han put up a better performance than Chu, Tsai managed to secure more votes than she did in her previous election.

Bounced back from 2018 electoral defeat

Tsai's comeback marks a stunning turnaround after experiencing defeats.

In 2018, Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) suffered a stunning electoral defeat in local elections, losing seven out of 13 cities and counties.

Tsai was also forced to step down as the chairwoman of the DPP, giving way to Cho Jung-tai, who is leading the party in the 2020 legislative elections held in conjunction with the presidential elections.

However, tides turned for Tsai as Chinese President Xi Jinping ramped up the unification rhetoric, urging Taiwan to reunite with mainland China in his 2019 New Year's speech.

Tsai saw a revival in her popularity after she reiterated that Taiwan’s sovereignty will never be compromised.

Fan Shih-ping, a political science professor at Taiwan Normal University, told SCMP that Xi’s Taiwan rhetoric has helped her bounce back, as “voters admired her courage in safeguarding Taiwan’s sovereignty”.

Top image via Sam Yeh/AFP