Beijing: Taiwan's voters go to the polls on Saturday in a historic vote widely expected to see opposition candidate Tsai Ing-wen become the island's first female president. It may also signal the end of an uneasy eight-year rapprochement with mainland China.

Ms Tsai, the 59-year-old leader of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, holds such a sizeable lead over rival Kuomintang candidate Eric Chu – pre-election polls have had her consistently ahead by at least 20 percentage points – that her party's victory is barely considered in doubt.

While the election campaign has largely been fought on domestic issues – how to revitalise Taiwan's back-peddling economy, and provide better starting wages and employment prospects for university graduates – Ms Tsai has found it hard to shake the view, particularly from overseas, that a DPP win could reintroduce uncertainty into the often fraught ties with Beijing.

"I have made it clear … that, once elected, I would immediately start communicating with our diplomatic allies and with China," Ms Tsai said during a campaign rally in Kaohsiung this week. "I know that stability across the Taiwan Strait is in our shared interests. I would do my best to maintain that stability."