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International Forum >> The Democracy Forum for East Asia>> "Political Finance and Democracy in East Asia: The Use and Abuse of Money in Campaigns and Elections"
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Introduction
Session I: Political Finance in a Comparative Context Session II: Political Finance in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and India Session III: Political Finance in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan Session IV: Regulating Campaign Contributions and Expenditures Session V: Disclosure, Transparency, and Institutional Enforcement Session VI: Making Political Finance More Democratic: Developing an Agenda for Reform Agenda Participants |
Session VI: Making Political Finance More Democratic: Developing an Agenda for Reform Moderator: Lee Sook-Jong In the final session of the conference, participants reviewed the effectiveness of recently adopted campaign finance reforms and debated the leading reform proposals now being considered in countries across Asia. Taro Kono described a proposal that he and other lawmakers had developed that would give each member of parliament a fixed amount (100,000,000 yen, he suggested) at the beginning of the year for political spending but that would also prohibit private contributions. Under that scheme, he said, the public will know exactly how much each candidate spends. Mr. Kono noted that knocking on a constituent's door (which is free) is illegal but calling that same constituent on the telephone (which costs money) is legal. And since postage is a major campaign expense, Mr. Kono also favored free mailings for parliamentary candidates. Marc Plattner was surprised to learn that Korean state subsidies came with limitations on how the money could be used, something he described as potentially dangerous to the independence of political parties. If there were to be subsidies, he recommended in-kind contributions such as free postage or media access. Jong Wan Kim favored public funding for political campaigns with a total ban on private contributions. But Chito Gascon said that "voters think that politicians are already corrupt, so why give them more money?" Doo Soo Kim, a representative of the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy in Korea, supported a proposal to reduce contribution limits to force candidates to raise small amounts from large numbers of people. But Jung-Bae Chun, the Korean parliamentary deputy, said that Korean voters have little interest in paying membership dues to political parties or in making campaign contributions. Mr. Chun claimed that he ranked number six among his fellow MPs in funds raised in 2000 but that almost all of his money came from donors to whom he had personal ties. "We cannot expect small amounts from large numbers of voters," Mr. Chun concluded. The Korean public is angry and frustrated with lack of reform, Jong Wan Kim asserted, but he did not expect reform to come from politicians, because "they have a vested interest in this system." Mr. Kim was more hopeful that civil society organizations would drive the reform process. He cited the example of a large coalition of 400 nongovernmental organizations that created an electoral blacklist of candidates who were deemed corrupt or antireform. Mr. Kim said that 70 percent of the candidates on the blacklist lost their elections. Hyuk-Baeg Im agreed that Korean politicians will not reform themselves without outside pressure. And Jung-Bae Chun noted that the Korean parliament, on the final day of its current session, failed to pass a bill on money laundering that had been supported by the international community. But Eduardo Posada Carbó told participants that other countries have had long periods of electoral fraud, voter coercion, and related problems in their histories. In the end, however, these problems were solved when both sides agreed to establish rules that would satisfy both winners and losers. Mr. Posada Carbó suggested that the best guarantee of fair electoral competition is strong political parties. But Chito Gascon said that in the Philippines "We have weak parties; politicians move quickly from one party to another. So what can we do to help parties develop?" Peter Manikas, an American expert on elections and political parties, reminded participants that the United States had been reforming its campaign finance system for at least the past twenty-five years. Several participants noted that no one country has the solution; no one solution will fit all countries; and reform must be on-going. While admitting that many serious issues had been raised during the three-day conference, American participant Carl Gershman concluded, "The problem we are discussing is not a fundamental threat to democracy but a threat to the quality of democracy." Larry Diamond disagreed, saying that opinion poll data in other transitional countries show a serious decline in support for democracy when citizens see politicians as corrupt and aloof from their concerns. "So I do see this as a serious threat for the survival of democracy in many countries," he said. He urged reformers to consider the problem in broad, historical context and recommended that they develop a reform coalition that includes elements from the state, political parties, civil society, and others within and without the bureaucracy. |
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