The five municipality council elections saw a neck-and-neck race between Taiwan's two major political parties with the main opposition party grabbing more seats than it did in the last elections, vote results showed Saturday. The opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) each won a total of 130 seats in the five councils in Taipei City, Xinbei City, Taichung City, Tainan City and Kaohsiung City. The DPP's considerable gain in council seats was the fruit of teamwork and the increasing support from voters, said its Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen after she lost the mayoral race in Xinbei City. DPP took hold of 35.34 percent of the votes, compared with KMT's 38.63 percent, according to the official results released by the Central Election Commission. Combining the votes the DPP won in local elections over the past two years, the party gained about 48.21 percent of the votes, more than 45.76 percent of the KMT, DPP Secretary General Wu Nai-jen added. The numbers showed DPP is already able to compete on an equal footing with the ruling party, Tsai noted. Neither of the two parties were able to win enough seats needed for a majority in all councils, however, as minor parties' candidates and independents garnered a total of 54 seats. 