TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- Tainan City council’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members Chiu Li-li (邱莉莉) and Huang Hsien-chu (黃先柱) heavily criticized President Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to Tainan that was accompanied by former DPP member Kuo Hsin-liang (郭信良).

Kuo was previously kicked out of the DPP for skillfully avoiding voting for his fellow party member Chiu as speaker of the Tainan City Council and undertook the post himself. It was a party wide consensus to elect Chiu as speaker of the City Council.

Huang and Chiu said on Saturday (May 18) that President Tsai knew about the vote but still chose Kuo to accompany her scheduled visit to Tainan, showing that Tsai is willing to win the presidential primary at all cost, reported ETToday.

Chiu said Kuo, and three other former DPP members Chen I-chen (陳怡珍), Chou Li-chin (周麗津), and Wu Tong-lung (吳通龍) secretly worked with the Kuomintang members of the City Council under the table to garner enough votes for Kuo to become the speaker. All four councilors were expelled from the DPP.

Chiu accused Tsai of putting her election bid before the party interest and neglecting her political responsibilities by associating herself with Kuo. Chiu warned that such action has already caused pushback among the grassroots DPP supporters.

Chiu said Tsai should take up the responsibilities for the DPP’s great loss in last year’s local elections, instead of collaborating with those who have been expelled from the party, or else she should run as an independent candidate.