We may have entered into the Year of the Ram, but the barnyard stench of vote buying at the tail end of the Year of the Horse still hangs in the air.

When the highly controversial Kaohsiung city councilor Chu An-hsiung won election on December 25th as City Council speaker, rumors abounded that Chu, who is not a member of any political party, had bought his way into the speakership. An ensuing storm of public outrage prompted the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) to expel party members on the Kaohsiung City Council who had been involved in the scandal. Law enforcement authorities in Kaohsiung launched a massive investigation and filed for the detention of suspects from several different parties.

In mid-January, investigators working on the vote-buying case stumbled across evidence that Kaohsiung's Temple of the Jade Emperor had lent NT$5.5 million to Wang Wen-cheng, director of the Kaohsiung Bureau of Civil Affairs. NT$800,000 of this sum was subsequently paid to Mayor Frank Hsieh's reelection committee. At the same time, some city councilors admitted that they had received NT$5 million bribes from Wang, disbursed on behalf of Chu. Wang is now under detention as a suspect in the case, and observers everywhere are keen to know whether Mayor Hsieh was involved in bribery to fix the elections for City Council speaker and deputy speaker.

Kaohsiung is smelling fishy on many scores these days, including the Zanadu land development scandal-the financial ties between Zanadu Development Corporation's major shareholder Su Hui-chen and a host of political figures-and the NT$2.85 million loan by the Temple of the Jade Emperor. Every one of these matters is connected to political contributions. Candidates for public office in Taiwan customarily measure their chances for success by the amount of contributions they are able to attract. It takes a lot of money, after all, to put on big, eye-grabbing rallies throughout one's constituency.

In addition to the deteriorating campaign climate, one can also point to the Public Officials Election and Recall Law as a source of today's problems. The law, which has not been amended in ten years, is clearly out of date. In Kaohsiung's mayoral and City Council elections last year, for example, campaign spending limits for mayoral and council candidates were roughly NT$18 million and NT$4 million, respectively. These figures are clearly out of line with the going "market rate" for these races. The spending figures officially reported by Mayor Hsieh's campaign headquarters did not exceed the legal limit, but the spending report noted that Hsieh's reelection committee spent NT$70-80 million. The Kaohsiung City Election Commission, following established precedent, was only able to levy a paltry fine of NT$100,000. In addition to amending the Public Officials Election and Recall Law, there is a pressing need to enact legislation that will stamp out black gold corruption and provide for greater transparency.

With the public in an uproar and politicians scrambling to distance themselves from corruption, the Legislative Yuan's Home and Nations Committee completed its initial review of the political contributions law, and the ruling and opposition parties were expecting to get the bill through the third and final reading during the recently concluded legislative session. But progress screeched to a halt when one of the opposition parties unexpectedly turned against the legislation.

The draft bill included specific provisions defining political contributions as the outright gift of personal property or real estate, or the provision of other economic benefits, to a person or group participating in an election campaign or otherwise engaged in political activities. As legal recipients of political contributions, the draft bill lists "popularly elected representatives" (including district and aboriginal seats in the Legislative Yuan, and seats on county, city, and township legislative assemblies), but the bill prohibits the taking of political contributions by at-large members in the Legislative Yuan, representatives of overseas Chinese communities in the Legislative Yuan, members of the non-standing National Assembly, and the heads of government agencies. Nor may political contributions be made by individuals or juristic persons from foreign nations, mainland China, or Hong Kong.

On January 14, the legislative caucuses of the ruling and opposition parties reached a consensus regarding penal provisions and reporting procedures in the draft bill of the political contributions law, agreeing that the law would allow members of the Legislative Yuan to accept a maximum of NT$3 million in political contributions per year, with annual caps of NT$1.5 million for city councilors in Taipei and Kaohsiung, NT$1 million for county council members as well as city councilors in Taiwan's five county-level cities, and NT$300,000 for council members in other cities, as well as all urban and rural townships.

In the future, political contributions to elected representatives at all levels will be monitored by the Control Yuan. Unlike the US system, however, which requires that each contribution be reported separately to the authorities, the Legislative Yuan draft bill would only require annual reports.

The bill being discussed by the ruling and opposition parties puts no caps on political contributions solicited by political parties, but it limits annual contributions to a party by an individual, civic organization, or profit-seeking enterprise to no more than NT$300,000, NT$2 million, or NT$3 million, respectively. The bill also provides that anonymous contributions to political parties, political associations, elected representatives, and candidates for public office cannot exceed one-tenth of total contributions to them.

The ruling and opposition parties had originally agreed that elected representatives would be allowed to accept political contributions between election campaign periods, but the PFP later withdrew its support for this provision, thus derailing any chance for passage of the bill during the recently concluded legislative term.

DPP legislator Eugene Jao suggested that public hearings be held during the upcoming legislative session to solicit the views of the public concerning how to achieve passage of a political contributions law. Since the ruling and opposition parties have already been working to hammer out a mutually acceptable bill, Jao feels that there is still hope for the coming session. In its current form, the draft bill does indeed need some improvement.

An article by Tunghai University political science professor Wang Yeh-li notes that the draft bill adopts for the first time of the concept of "persons preparing to declare their candidacy," but he points out a problem with contributions to such persons-they can be disqualified by the election commission and are sometimes persuaded by a political party to withdraw from a race. When that happens, what is to be done with the contributions they have already received?

Professor Wang sees no big problem with allowing contributions between election campaign periods, since many political figures take in contributions regardless of whether it is "during an election campaign" or "during a period of prospective candidacy." The important thing, in Wang's opinion, is what their motives are when they accept contributions between election campaign periods. What do they intend to use the money for? How are such contributions to be monitored? How are elected representatives and those who make contributions to avoid crossing the line into bribery?

In his New Year's address to the nation, President Chen Shui-bian set forth "one objective and two key focuses" for national policy, the two key focuses being to seek economic development and pursue reform. In the area of reform, he expressed his hope for early passage of a political parties law and a political contributions law so that Taiwan could have a cleaner political process.

The enactment of a political contributions law would mark a turning point in the quest to raise politics in Taiwan to a higher level. People throughout Taiwan are hoping that the vote buying scandal in the Kaohsiung City Council will set in motion a chain of events that ends up bringing a better tomorrow.