Taiwan's Nationalist Party was swept from its last bastion of power today in a landslide defeat in parliamentary elections at the hands of the Democratic Progressive Party of President Mr Chen Shui-bian and other groups.
The result is certain to alarm Beijing, which will see it emboldening the DPP to move Taiwan further towards independence.
The DPP won 87 seats, up from 66, replacing the Nationalists as the largest party in the 225-seat legislature.
The Nationalists won 68 seats, down from 123 seats in the 1998 election. Some deputies defected from the party last year leaving it with 110 seats heading into Saturday's poll.
The People First Party, led by former Nationalist rebel Mr James Soong, also scored impressive gains, more than doubling its number of seats to 46 from 20.
And the fledgling Taiwan Solidarity Union, created by former president Mr Lee Teng-hui who was purged by the Nationalists, won 13 seats, up from one.
With no party gaining an outright majority, political horse-trading is likely to follow, with Mr Chen seeking a coalition government to tackle the island's worst ever recession, record unemployment and to mend fences with China.
Parliament was the final redoubt of the Nationalists after they lost the presidency to Mr Chen last year, having governed Taiwan for half a century since fleeing China in 1949.
The official count showed the DPP won 3.45 million votes, or 36.57 per cent of the popular vote, while the Nationalists collected 2.95 million votes, or 31.28 per cent.