Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has announced that she intends to resign as the head of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which suffered major losses in Saturday's local elections. But she says she will remain as Taiwan's president.

Tsai held a news conference at the party's headquarters on Saturday night.

She said her party failed to achieve its intended goal. The president added that she accepts the decision of the Taiwanese people. She went on to say that she intends to take responsibility for the party's losses and immediately resign as its leader.

Around 11,000 mayors, governors and municipal councilors were chosen on Saturday. The elections are held every four years.

Observers were eager to see which political parties would prevail in 22 of the mayoral and gubernatorial races.

Tsai's party held seven mayoral and gubernatorial posts before the elections, but on Saturday it only won five.

Mayoral candidates from her party have conceded defeat in three northern cities, including Taoyuan. The party also failed to retake the mayor's office in Taipei.

These were the first elections held in Taiwan, since the Chinese Communist Party's National Congress ended.
Tsai had said repeatedly during the campaigns that the international community would be paying attention to the elections for that reason.

She had also suggested that the local elections would be a referendum on her administration.

But it seems that the voters did not listen to her appeals.

Taiwan's largest opposition party is the Kuomintang, or KMT. Its goal was to secure more than half of the mayoral posts in six special municipal districts. The party achieved that goal.

It won in Taipei. It also managed to take the mayor's office back from the Democratic Progressive Party in Taoyuan.

KMT's leader Eric Chu told reporters that the election victories are for his party and for the people of Taiwan.