Campaigns for the legislature officially commence today

The Central Election Commission (CEC) yesterday released the formal list of legislative candidates, ahead of the beginning of the official 10-day campaign period for the Dec. 11 legislative elections.

There are a total of 493 candidates who have passed qualification reviews by the CEC and taken part in the candidate number lottery.

Regional and Aboriginal legislative nominees add up to 386 candidates, 89 legislators-at-large and 18 overseas legislators.

The official campaign period runs between today and Dec. 10, from 7 am until 10am. Beginning at 7am this morning, all 493 legislative hopefuls who have appeared on the nominee list will be subjected to the regulations of the Public Officials Election and Recall Law (公職人員選罷法).

The law stipulates that political parties, individual legislative candidates and third parties will be prohibited from airing radio or TV commercials.

Violators will face fines under the TV and radio Broadcasting Law (廣電法). The fines for cable TV stations could reach a maximum of NT$500,000, while law-breaking terrestrial TV stations might face fines of up to NT$1 million.

In addition, campaign rally broadcasting is also off-limits.

"From Dec. 1, the airing of any complete campaign rally on TV and radio channels is banned," said CEC Chairman Chang Cheng-hsiung (張政雄).

Chang said that live broadcasting of campaign rallies bordered on free advertising and therefore only clips of events can appear in news programs.

Commercial or non-profit advertisements which do not endorse a certain candidate may be aired. However, this excludes any commercial that implies promotion of a certain candidate in a way that common-sense judgment would discern from a normal profit ad.