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Legislative elections: FEATURE: Tight purses force minor parties to be imaginative

A Green Party candidate promotes the party by handing out leaflets near Taipei City Hall MRT station late last month. PHOTO: CHIEN JUNG-FONG, TAIPEI TIMES

Contrary to their Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) counterparts, which have budgets from electoral campaigns, legislator hopefuls running under the banner of smaller parties rely mostly on donations from supporters to run their campaign activities.

Given their limited financial resources, small parties candidates often opt for more "economical" ways, such as e-mail campaigns and blogs, to promote their candidacies, as opposed to their resourceful counterparts, who hold big campaign rallies, run TV spots and print copious campaign brochures.

"The traditional campaign style resorts to passion, whereas most of our Green Party Taiwan supporter are considered more of idealists," said Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲), a Green Party legislative candidate. "[We] rely mostly on small donations [from our supporters], we even bring our own water bottles when we are out on the streets."

Legislative hopefuls from The Third Society Party do not have their own individual campaign offices.

Third Society Party founder and legislative candidate Jou Yi-cheng (周奕成) said candidates from small parties run the campaign by promoting their ideology.

"We do not have a lot of money for campaign events, so it's impossible for us to waste any of our money," he said.

With their seemingly bottomless resources, KMT legislative candidates, on the other hand, are often the envy of smaller parties.

With the support from the party's affluent party assets, each KMT legislative candidate receives an aggregate budget of NT$5 million (US$156,000) from the party in subsidies for campaign spending.

KMT Taipei City Headquarters head Pan Chia-sen (潘家森) said the money is wired to special campaign accounts set up by the candidates.

"This is legal political donation for campaign activities. Whoever receives this money must report it to the tax bureau as political donations," he said.

Given that most KMT candidates are current lawmakers, their better-known names also give them an advantage when soliciting donations, he said.

Although the DPP does not subsidize its legislative candidates, being the governing party has helped candidates receive donations.

DPP campaign aides said that party candidates receive donations from high-ranking party officials, with the amounts varying on an individual basis.

The bus advertisement industry, meanwhile, said that compared with previous elections, there had been a decline this time around in requests from legislative candidates to place ads on buses.
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