The ruling Kuomintang (KMT) will discuss punishment for its city councilors who did not support the party in the deputy speaker election for the Taipei City Council, party officials said Sunday. The KMT suffered an unexpected loss in the deputy speaker election in the capital for the first time a day earlier after failing to secure all the votes from its 31 councilors. The KMT has eight more seats on the council than the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). DPP councilor Cho Po-ya defeated incumbent Deputy Speaker Chen Ching-hsiang by a 30-29 margin. It is obvious that six KMT members voted for the DPP candidate, said Pan Chia- sen, chief of the KMT's Taipei branch. He added that the party had tracked down four or five of them. 'There is no other choice but to expel them, ' Pan said. He said the party would hold a meeting the following day, after which the disciplinary committee of the Taipei branch will talk about punishment. President Ma Ying-jeou, who serves concurrently as KMT chairman, said that 'we have to reflect on ourselves.' 