Fri, Oct 19, 2001 page3

• Candidates struggle to fund campaigns

  CONTRIBUTIONS Taiwan's faltering economy is hurting the bottom line for candidates in the year-end elections and many are looking to trim spending on campaign activities

  • By Joyce Huang / STAFF REPORTER
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  The sagging economy has hurt most candidates' efforts to stage campaign activities for the year-end elections, as major political contributors are running short of cash.

  "We've raised less than one tenth of the donations we had in the past," prospective KMT legislator-at-large Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) said, adding that candidates' "personal connections" with contributors and their "prospects for winning elections" were deciding factors in the success of fund-raising.

  Huang said that whether the party was in power also had an impact on the effectiveness of fund-raising.

  "Some major industrialists, whom the KMT had kept a good relationship with, diverted their donations [from the KMT] to the ruling DPP and A-bian," Huang said.

  Some of these industrialists would like to further conceal the fact that they made contributions to the former ruling regime, if they had in fact made any, Huang said.

  Since there are more than 500 slated candidates in total this year, the demand for political donations has increased and some conglomerates have decided to rule out fund-raisers.

  "From now on, the United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) will no longer fund any political activities; neither political parties nor any individual candidate," the corporation's chairman Robert Tsao (曹興誠) said last Sunday while attending a science award ceremony where President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was also on hand.

  "Realizing corporations' difficulties, we have long stopped asking for donations from them," KMT legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) said. He added that most of his former contributors were actually from small and medium-sized businesses, which he said have fallen victim to the current economic downturn.

  Ting added that things were made worse by the fact that the KMT curtailed funds for its candidates this year to nearly one fifth of former levels.

  Party relationship

  Former KMT legislator Wang Tien-ging (王天競) said the party had once given him NT$10 million to NT$20 million to run for public office, saying that "the closer candidates' relationship with the party's headquarters is, the more money will be reserved for them. Some were even given NT$30 million to NT$50 million."

  Wang is now running as an independent candidate after the People First Party (PFP) failed to nominate him and said that he is suffering from the most difficult time ever for fund-raising.

  Meanwhile, KMT Secretary-General Lin Feng-cheng (林豐正) is reported to have admitted that "the party is short of campaign funds this year" since its assets have depreciated greatly.

  As frustrating as Tsao's remarks may be to candidates, some election hopefuls are turning to other possible channels for small donations. Others plan to curtail their campaign spending.

  PFP spokesman Liao Tsang-song (廖蒼松) said the party plans to launch fund-raising hotlines soon -- asking supporters to make donations over the telephone at NT$100 per call. The party hopes to collect funds from enthusiastic supporters, Liao said, adding that the party has long lacked a suitable mechanism for fund-raising.

  Liao said that the PFP usually counts on the connections of party officials, including its chairman, vice chairman and department directors, to solicit votes and funds, but he added that "their former connections don't seem to work now" due to economic woes.

  The PFP, along with the New Party and Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), also sticks to traditional channels for accepting donations by opening bank or postal accounts.

  Director of the TSU's department of social development Chen Ming-ying (陳敏英) said the party had collected as much as NT$100,000 to NT$200,000 from one individual and as much as NT$1 million to NT$2 million from a certain industrialist through his bank accounts.

  As for the New Party, spokesman Kao Hsin-wu (高新武) said that the party has only collected around NT$1 million after a concert on Sept. 18 was held, where some 2,000 of the party's campaign CDs were sold. He added that, during the party's earlier anniversary celebrations, many participants had also made small donations.

  Kao said that the party was disadvantaged in attracting donations from big corporations or interest groups and had no intention of doing so since the party would then be expected to support bills which these organizations favored.

  Joint effort

  Some candidates across all parties have decided to seek joint-campaign efforts to cut costs.

  For example, the DPP's Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄), Lan Mei-chin (藍美津), Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康), Chou Po-ya (周柏雅) and Julian Kuo (郭正亮) have employed the joint-campaign strategy, saving at least NT$1 million per head.

  Lan, the group's treasurer, had earlier said that each candidate was only required to contribute NT$3 million to the pot, making a total budget of NT$15 million for their joint campaign. In the past, many legislators estimated that one candidate alone usually spent NT$10 million on a campaign.

  KMT's Ting and Wang, nevertheless, plan to downsize their campaign activities.

  "I will have no election headquarters, promotion trucks to tour around, campaign flags or other campaign activities. Most of my spending will be on election publications," Ting said.

  The PFP's Liao also estimated that the party would probably secure NT$100 million as its total campaign budget -- half of which would then be used to produce publications or to run promotions, including TV commercials and newspaper ads.

  Unlike opposition parties, the ruling DPP appeared to be more successful in raising funds this year.

  The highly criticized fund-raising banquet held by the party's Mainstream Faction (主流聯盟) last Sunday had secured a budget of more than NT$60 million for its 41 candidates, according to party treasurer Cheng Pao-ching (鄭寶清).

  "The fact that the DPP is the ruling party may have helped. But it has been quite normal that DPP candidates can easily attract donations, even when we were the opposition party," Cheng said, dismissing the accusation that the party pressured supporters into making donations with its ruling power.

  The faction was criticized for the NT$50,000 per head donation required to attend the fund-raising event, setting the most expensive price ever for a fund-raising banquet.

  In response, Cheng said that because of the high price, the banquet didn't raise as much money as suggested, saying that "if NT$50,000 is split into shares for the faction's 41 candidates, on average, it is only a little over NT$1,000 for each."

  Keeping a low profile, DPP headquarters said it has no fund-raising plans so far but added the party would cash in advance governmental subsidies to offset campaign expenses after the elections

  Government funds

  "The party has budgeted NT$80 million for all campaign activities, which should be offset later, should the party win 2.7 million ballots," the party's deputy secretary-general, Hsu Yang-min (許陽明), said.

  According to the Political Party Law, a party whose share of the vote in an election exceeds 5 percent is entitled to NT$30 per ballot won.

  As controversial and complicated as political parties' fund-raising patterns are, the nation currently has no law regulating these activities.

  The proposed political donation law (政治獻金管理條例) has been shelved in the legislature since February last year, according to the interior ministry.

  The proposed law stipulates that no one should make an anonymous donation of more than NT$10,000. And the ceiling of a donation for each candidate in the presidential elections, mayoral elections with a population of more than 3 million and county commissioners' elections with a population of less than 3 million is NT$300 million, NT$60 million and NT$40 million respectively.

  By that standard, many candidates would have violated the proposed law. Had the law been passed, those candidates would face a maximum penalty of a five-year jail term and a fine of between NT$200,000 and NT$1.5 million.

  But, before the law is passed, candidates will still devote themselves to holding fund-raising events since they are also indicators of a candidate's political activeness.
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