Just before midnight Tuesday, Interior Minister Liao Liou-yi announced that the panel had unanimously agreed to upgrade the status of Taipei County and to allow the mergers of Taichung City with Taichung County and of Kaohsiung City with Kaohsiung County to form new special municipalities.

The three approvals had been widely predicted, leading to DPP accusations that the reviewers were following a previously agreed secret government agenda.

The 25-member group failed to reach a consensus on the merger of Tainan City with Tainan County, handing the case over to the Executive Yuan. The Tainan case provoked the longest discussions and the strongest opinions, but no vote was held, Liao said.

Tainan City Mayor Hsu Tain-tsair and Tainan County Magistrate Su Huan-jhih, both DPP members, said they were willing to visit the central government again to put across their case for a merger.

DPP lawmaker Huang Wei-cher expressed his doubt about the Cabinet now having to rule on the Tainan merger’s fate. The government should tell the public who opposed the merger, its own representatives or the academics on the review panel.

DPP legislator Yeh Yi-jin faulted the government for completing the whole review process in just one day, as if redrawing the administrative map of Taiwan was such a simple thing that did not need public discussion.

The DPP said the government decision would create two countries in Taiwan, one area where the population enjoyed better government services, and another area where residents would end up as second-class citizens.

The review panel unanimously rejected the mergers of Yunlin County with Chiayi County, both ruled by the DPP, and the upgrades of Taoyuan County and Changhua County, both KMT-governed.

Yunlin and Chiayi could have formed an agricultural heavyweight, but the panel held a bias against agriculture, the DPP said.

The upgrade of Taipei County was expected to give embattled KMT incumbent Chou Hsi-wei a chance to recover from negative opinion polls by postponing the December election by a year.

His expected DPP opponent, former Premier Su Tseng-chang, who was already elected twice as Taipei County Magistrate, said the setback to his election chances did not signal an end to his political career.

“I can go all over the country and support friendly local candidates” in the year-end local elections, Su told reporters.

Chou said he welcomed Su to run for mayor of the new entity to be known as Hsinpei City, which can be read to mean “the new north” or “New Taipei.”

The postponement of elections scheduled for Taipei County, Kaohsiung County, Taichung County and Taichung City before the end of this year was unconstitutional and undemocratic, said DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang. He called on lawmakers to file a request with the Council of Grand Justices for a ruling on the constitutionality of the changes.

Taichung Mayor Jason Hu said he would decide next year whether or not to run for reelection. Critics have described the approval of the Taichung merger as a ploy by his rivals to keep Hu in the city and away from central government. According to surveys, Hu would be a popular candidate for premier if there were a thorough Cabinet reshuffle.

Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu said she was planning to run for election as head of the newly merged area. The city was already a special administrative area with elections scheduled for December 2010.

Both the DPP and the KMT had already nominated candidates for Kaohsiung County Magistrate, but the two said they could agree to a new selection process.

The redrawing of the administrative map will also lead to a cutting down in the number of seats on the councils in the new areas, and to the ending of elections for lower-level township chiefs and councils.

The deal can only go ahead with the approval of the Executive Yuan, which is expected to evaluate the review commission’s decisions for one to two weeks. After the changes are agreed to, they can take effect on December 20, 2010.