Inquiring into Taiwan’s small, but sizeable apolitical population will most likely lead to an explanation of the decades-long ideological animosity between the nation’s two major parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
The emergence of independent politicians and new parties in recent years — such as Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the New Power Party (NPP) and the Social Democratic Party — stands as proof that voters are searching for options.
As the nation has been irreparably dominated by the DPP and the KMT, the question is if and when they are going to respond to public demand — despite the political cost to them — and amend the nation’s laws to give smaller parties a fighting chance.
Unfortunately, the current tide in the Legislative Yuan does not seem to be turning in favor of small parties.
Legislators serving on the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee on Tuesday deliberated a draft political party act, which would regulate the establishment, operation and financing of political parties.
The lawmakers were unable to reach a consensus on Article 22 of the bill, which proposes lowering the threshold of the government’s campaign subsidy for political parties from 3.5 percent to 2 percent of the “party votes” that a party garners in a legislative election.
The threshold, which is governed by the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), was lowered in 2015 from 5 percent. Parties that pass the threshold are entitled to NT$50 per vote.
The NPP said it proposed the threshold of 2 percent to allow small and emerging parties a better chance to develop, rather than seeking to benefit itself.
Why does the threshold matter to the survival of smaller parties?
In Taiwan, running an election campaign costs a substantial amount of money and eats away a large chunk of a party’s funding. A fledgling party generally receives fewer donations from the public. Without a government subsidy, it is almost impossible for a small party to compete with larger parties that possess more resources.
Statistics compiled by the Control Yuan showed that the DPP spent about NT$637.7 million (US$21.1 million) campaigning for last year’s presidential election, followed by the KMT at NT$224.7 million. The expenditure covered advertisements, personnel costs and campaign events, among other things.
The People First Party, a smaller KMT spin-off that also nominated candidates for last year’s race, received only NT$22 million in donations for the election, but ended up spending NT$98 million.
The statistics also showed that except for the two major parties, all parties operated in the red last year, including the NPP, which is considered the most popular smaller party, but received only NT$6.4 million in donations and ran a deficit of NT$2.3 million.
Although some believe that having additional small parties helps a nation transition into a vibrant democracy, others might argue that it can impede government efficiency and create legislative chaos.
However, lowering the threshold of the government subsidy for parties has a different effect than reducing the threshold for parties to be awarded legislator-at-large seats in the legislature, which is set at 5 percent of all “party votes” cast in an election.
Having too many parties and legislative caucuses in the legislature could indeed slow down legislative procedures, but making government subsidies more available to fledgling parties would allow more of them to be formed and different voices to be heard in the political arena.
That way, if the NPP were to lose its popularity, voters would still have additional choices, instead of being stuck with the same old KMT and DPP.
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