TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Kuomintang’s (KMT) Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) has been elected deputy speaker of Taiwan’s legislature.

Chiang was elected on Thursday afternoon (Feb. 1) during the first sitting of Taiwan’s new Legislative Yuan after the Jan. 13 general election. The vote result came out hours after fellow KMT lawmaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) was elected legislative speaker.

Lawmakers elected Chiang in the second of two voting rounds after no candidate gained a majority in the first. He received 54 votes compared to the Democratic Progressive Party’s Tsai Chi-Chang’s (蔡其昌) 51.

The Taiwan People’s Party’s eight legislators abstained from voting in the second round, as they did in the second round of voting that elected Han Kuo-yu speaker. Members of the KMT displayed their votes to the media before they cast them, as they had been told to do a day earlier.

Chiang served as the chair of the KMT between 2020 and 2021, and before that was the director of the now-defunct Government Information Office. He has been a member of the legislature representing Taichung’s 8th electoral district since 2012.