Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's pro-independence leader, has just over a year to win back public support if she wants to avoid going down in history as the island's first one-term president.
Her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) suffered a resounding loss to the China-friendly Kuomintang on Saturday. The scale of the defeat was far greater than forecast, with her party losing seven cities and counties of the 13 they held — including its traditional bastions of Kaohsiung and Yilan.
Now with just 14 months to go until the presidential election in January 2020, Tsai faces a challenge to turn things around. Although she resigned as head of the DPP after the election loss, Tsai faces no obvious challengers from within who might stop her from seeking a second term as president.