Mass protest may have put Taipei mayor Wayne Chiang in pole position to contest the island’s next leadership election
3-MIN READ3-MINLawrence Chungin TaipeiPublished: 8:00pm, 27 Jul 2026Taipei mayor Wayne Chiang Wan-an has emerged as the biggest political winner from an opposition protest against the government’s handling of a food safety scandal that drew what organisers said were more than 200,000 people onto the streets of the city.The unexpectedly large turnout appears to have given the island’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang, fresh momentum ahead of the local elections in November and could reshape the race to become the party’s candidate in the next leadership election in 2028.
The demonstration outside the office of Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te was the largest opposition rally since Lai came to power two years ago.
Protesters accused the government of mishandling a scandal involving soybean salad oil found to contain excessive levels of the carcinogen benzo[a]pyrene, demanding that Lai apologise and Premier Cho Jung-tai resign.
It showed that food safety could mobilise people in a way that cut across party lines, according Chang Yuan-hsiang, a political science professor at Soochow University in Taipei.
