Green party battles to gain political foothold

By June Tsai

The Green Party Taiwan is traditionally thought of as an environmental group, not a bona fide political party that actually participates in electoral politics. The party, however, hopes to change this image once and for all in the upcoming Nov. 27 elections.

It bases its appeal in part on what it regards as flagrant infringements of environmental protection laws and disregard of the principles of social justice—both committed, it says, by the government over the past year.

In one case cited by the party, a court ruling was ignored by authorities, in order that a science park expansion project with potentially harmful effects on the environment could proceed.

In another, land appropriation rules were not followed so that farmland could be appropriated and turned into industrial parks.

The GPT hopes that these and other cases will rouse the public to a feeling of indignation, and that this feeling can be translated into votes for the party at the ballot box. If voters can lend support to the party, it will be able to balance social and political developments that have tilted too far in favor of growth at all costs, party members said.

“A popular prejudice against our party says we run in elections because we want to gain publicity for the environmental causes that we support,” GPT Convener Pan Han-sheng said in Taipei Oct. 23. “But that isn’t true. We are campaigning not just for a cause. We want to be elected, because by participating in the political system we can help bring about a sustainable future.”

During the upcoming elections, voters will choose new mayors and city councilors for the nation’s five special municipalities—Taipei, Xinbei, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung—whose populations combined represent over half of the entire population. The GPT has nominated four candidates to run for seats in the Taipei City Council, and one for Xinbei City Council.

“Our candidates run on platforms that cover a wide range of issues beyond the environment. They are ready to play a role in the monitoring of a city’s policymaking body,” Pan said.

But the nature of the two-party political system in Taiwan poses a formidable obstacle to the party’s aspirations.

This is not the first time that the party has run in an election. After the Green Party was formed in 1996, it fielded four candidates to run for the now-defunct National Assembly, advocating participatory democracy, ecological sustainability and social justice.

For the 1998 Taipei City Council elections, the party nominated three candidates, who together obtained 1.48 percent of the 1.5 million votes cast. It missed gaining a seat by a small margin.

Eight years later, in 2006, the party again ran in the city council elections in Taipei. Sadly, the party only garnered 0.57 percent of the votes, a significant decline from its showing in 1998. None of the party’s candidates came close to being elected.

In 2008, the country elected legislators under a new voting system, according to which votes can be cast for both individual candidates and a political party. Again, the GPT failed to win a single seat, as did many other smaller parties.

One reason smaller parties in Taiwan have a hard time winning votes is that the two main political parties—the Democratic Progressive Party and the Kuomintang (KMT)—tend to dominate politics.

“People fail to see that the Green Party’s agenda transcends partisanship, that Taiwan must become a responsible global citizen by paying attention to its enormous environmental problems, and that protecting the environment can be a good way of making money as well,” according to Linda Gail Arrigo, a sociologist and political activist based in Taiwan.

“While the KMT and DPP are engaged in navel gazing, the GPT has a real vision for the country, emphasizing its role in the world,” she said, adding that the GPT co-founded Asia Pacific Greens Networks, part of the Global Greens—an international network of national Green parties from around the world.

To make matters worse, election rules have been written in such a way that makes it difficult for smaller parties to grow larger.

In the 2008 election, the GPT received a total of 58,473 party votes, or 0.6 percent of the total, far below the 5 percent threshold required for the GPT to be recognized as an official political party under the new system.

The outcome meant that NT$2.8 million (US$90,300) deposited by the party with the government would not be returned. Instead, the cash deposit went directly to the state treasury.

As a result, the party, which can only make ends meet by membership fees and individual donations, announced in January that it was on the verge of bankruptcy.

“Election rules, determined by the country’s two major parties, have resulted in an unfair distribution of political resources and contributed to smaller parties being unable to emerge,” GPT Secretary-General Chang Hung-lin said.

“The two-party game is responsible for a variety of voices being ignored—those of children and youth, the poor and the marginalized, those of trees, animals and the Earth,” Chang said. “They don’t cast a vote, but they are all important if our society is to become humane and livable. It is for them that the GPT has to win.”

In Germany, Chang said, a mere 0.5 percent of votes entitles a political party to receive state funds, while in Taiwan the requirement is 5 percent.

Under the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act, political parties can claim state subventions in accordance with the number of votes they receive—NT$50 for each vote.

“That means the KMT and DPP respectively receive state subventions of around NT$20 million and NT$18 million per year. Under such circumstances, it is likely that the strong will get stronger while the weak will become weaker,” Chang said.

“If Taiwan had adopted the German way, the GPT’s 58,000 votes would have amounted to annual subsidies of NT$3 million, a sum that would have helped our party greatly,” he said, adding that the GPT’s annual budget is a mere NT$8 million.

Other unfavorable financial obstacles include the astronomical registration deposit required for running in an election—NT$200,000 in the case of a city councilor election—and a campaign finance law that says contributions to a political party cannot be used to claim tax deductions if the party receives less than 2 percent of votes cast, Chang said.

The party, determined not to follow what it regards as an unhealthy trend, says it will run its campaigns on a shoestring budget and in an environmentally friendly way. It is recycling posters and banners used in previous election campaigns. Its candidates get their ideas and proposals across, and canvass for votes, by meeting voters face to face on street corners.

The five Green candidates, ranging in age from 25 to 40, describe themselves as agents for citizens. Candidates elected the clean way, the party says, will become watchdogs, whose purpose will be to expose any irregularity in the policymaking process.

“Green parties the world over are unlikely to become a major party in any country,” Arrigo remarked. “Yet, like other green parties, the GPT has played a critical role in setting the agenda for the nation.”

“In Taiwan, the government now has no choice but to give serious attention to the issues raised by the party,” she said. (HZW)

This article is first published in Taiwan Today Nov. 19, 2010.