TAIPEI, April 18 -- Six candidates have registered to run for party chair of Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party in an election scheduled for May 20, local media said Tuesday.

The six candidates are the incumbent KMT chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu and vice chairman Hau Lung-bin, former deputy leader Wu Den-yih, former KMT Vice Chairman Steve Chan, former Legislator Pan Wei-kang as well as former Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corp. Chairman Han Kuo-yu.

Each candidate has collected more than 13,322 signatures, or three percent of the Kuomintang membership, as required to qualify for the election.

Wu Den-yih currently leads the lineup with 221,891 signatures collected.

The KMT party now has around 450,000 eligible party members with voting rights, while the six candidates have submitted over 720,000 signatures altogether.

The party has set up an election supervisory committee to double check the validity of submitted signatures and will announce the final list of eligible candidates on Friday.