The Legislative Yuan’s Internal Administration Committee yesterday passed an initial review of draft amendments to the Political Donations Act (政治獻金法) that would set an upper limit on the amount of donations a political party could pass on to its candidates each year.
It would be the first time that such limits would be established.
Political parties would not be allowed to donate more than NT$25 million (US$833,167) to presidential and vice presidential candidates or more than NT$2 million to legislative candidates, according to the draft amendments.
Mayor and county commissioner candidates would not be allowed to receive more than NT$3 million in political donations from their parties, while city and county councilor candidates would be bound by an upper limit of NT$500,000, the draft amendments said.
The proposals would also limit the maximum amount of political donations other local representatives may receive from their political parties.
According to balance sheets published by the Control Yuan, during last year’s presidential election, then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Eric Chu (朱立倫) and vice presidential candidate Jennifer Wang (王如玄) together received NT$200.16 million in political donations.
Then-Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and vice presidential candidate Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) received NT$6.36 million, the balance sheets showed.
During last year’s legislative elections, the KMT nominated 78 candidates, who received a total of NT$457.98 million in political donations from the party, it showed.
KMT Legislator Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) received NT$6.2 million, the highest amount of any Taipei-based legislative candidate, it showed
Following the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例), the amendments were also drafted to target the KMT, KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) said.
DPP Legislator Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) said that competition between different parties is clearly unfair.
The amendments do not aim to target specific parties, but the trend is to limit donations as democracies develop, Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) said, adding that the proposals were in the spirit of democracy.
Setting an upper limit for donations by political parties would help ensure fair competition between parties and also make political donations more transparent and reasonable, Yeh said.
According to the proposals, donations to nominees by political parties may only be made through dedicated accounts and violations of the upper limits would incur fines of up to double the donations.
Anyone who jeopardizes the system or acts as an intermediary, using their professional authority, employment relationship or other interests involved in a person’s livelihood to enable political donations, could be fined between NT$200,000 and NT$1.2 million, the draft amendments said.
The bill still needs to pass negotiations and the legislature would not be able to complete all three readings during the current legislative session, DDP committee convener Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆) said, adding that even without an extraordinary meeting, the amendment could still be implemented by next year’s local elections as long as it passes the three readings before then.
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