TAIPEI: Taiwan's incoming interior minister Liao Fung-te has died of heart failure 10 days before he was due to take office, his doctors and party officials said on Sunday. He was 57.

"The president-elect Ma Ying-jeou and (Kuomintang) party chairman Wu Poh-hsiung were shocked upon learning it and have voiced condolences to his family," Kuomintang spokesman Huang Yu-chen told reporters.

Liao suddenly collapsed while jogging with his wife on a hill near their home outside Taipei on Saturday afternoon.

Doctors at the Taipei Municipal Wan Fang Hospital said Liao had shown no sign of life when he arrived there. The hospital announced his death after emergency treatment for five hours into late Saturday night. - AFP/ac

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