China's mainland is watching closely on the developments in the leader election of Taiwan region, a spokesman with the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council said Saturday.

The vote ended on Saturday, but one side of the candidates claimed it was unfair and decided to file a lawsuit to nullify the election, according to media in Taiwan.

"We are closely following the developments," said the spokesman in response to a request for comment on the disputes in Taiwan leader election.

Election of Taiwan authorities' leaders causes disputes

The voting for the election of Taiwan authorities' leaders was carried out across the island on Saturday.

According to the result released by the Taiwan election authorities, Chen Shui-bian and Annette Lu, candidates for Democratic Progressive Party, won 6,471,970 votes, or 50.11 percent of the total; while Lien Chan and James Soong, of the coalition of the Kuomintang and People First Party, won 49.89 percent of the votes, totaling 6,442,452.

Lien and Soong made strong announcements immediately after the election to call into question of the result, saying that "it was an unfair election" and there were "numerous clouds of suspicions" in the run-up to the election.

The coalition of Lien and Soong demanded that all the ballot boxes be sealed up and said they were going to "file a petition to nullify the election."

(Xinhua News Agency March 21, 2004)