Taiwan Today

With voter fatigue growing, the nation's political campaigns are constantly striving for creative ways to get their messages across.

On a warm December morning at his campaign headquarters on in , Frank Hsieh, the 2008 presidential candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), posed for photojournalists with two dolls. "It's easy to distinguish between these two dolls. The one with hair is Hsieh, and the bald one is his running mate Su Tseng-hang," said the host at the launch ceremony for paraphernalia promoting the Hsieh-Su ticket, drawing laughter from supporters. That afternoon, a outlet exclusively selling the dolls and other campaign merchandise opened. A van selling campaign items soon joined the publicity effort supporting the DPP presidential ticket, traveling with the candidates as they campaigned around .

The next day, Ma Ying-jeou, the Kuomintang (KMT) presidential hopeful, showed up in red clothes and red hat at a charity event at 's Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. With Christmas three days away, this Santa was the focus of the media as he sold a work of art for charity and distributed sweets to the crowd.

In late December, with only three months to go before the presidential election on March 22, the publicity campaigns of 's two major political parties were gaining momentum. Books about both candidates were being sold. A former Hsieh aide had penned one about the candidate's life entitled Striving for Victory in Adversity, while Ma and running mate Vincent Siew co-authored Managing the Nation: Winning Strategies for .

"Compared with the KMT, the DPP is often deemed to be better at campaign publicity," says Cheng Tzu-leong, a professor in 's (NCCU) Department of Advertising. In Cheng's opinion, President Chen Shui-bian was a pioneering force in campaign publicity, always daring to try something new. In the 1989 legislative elections, Chen used the slogan "Viva Taiwan Independence" at a time when authorities considered advocating independence a form of sedition, and sedition was punishable by imprisonment.

The Chen campaign in the 1994 mayoral election also made history by creating songs especially for the campaign. Although previous campaigns had used inspiring songs, Cheng says they had not created new ones. "Chen was also the first candidate in to use online bulletin boards to communicate with young people, which was why many of them supported him," Cheng says.

Passing the Hat

As an example of election-related merchandising, the Bian Hat Factory has been perhaps the most successful domestic campaign merchandiser to date. Selling hats emblazoned with Chen's nickname "a-Bian," the campaign unit was set up to promote his 1998 campaign for a second term as mayor. Initial sales were not impressive, according to Daniel Lo, the factory's general manager. However, when the DPP put up a campaign billboard at the factory featuring a portrait of Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Republic of China, wearing an a-Bian hat several months before the December election, sales skyrocketed. "That caused a vigorous public debate, with some favoring the idea and some opposing it. That's when the hats really started to sell," Lo says.

Chen failed to win another term as mayor, but many of his supporters encouraged him to run in the 2000 presidential election. Thus, the Bian Hat Factory continued to operate. It also decided to diversify its products and do more design research. Three designers even went to in the spring of 1999 to seek inspiration, as Japanese fashion has a strong influence on fashion in . "Nobody was as professional and serious as we were in developing campaign merchandise," Lo says.

In total, more than one million a-Bian hats were sold from mid-1998 through May 2000, including the official NT$100 (US$3) hats and unauthorized imitations that sold for as much as NT$300 (US$9). More than 100 Chen items such as T-shirts and decorative magnets were developed, with the hat and a Chen doll selling the best. "Those products made people feel closer to politics," says Chao Tien-lin, a spokesman for the Hsieh camp.

The Bian Hat Factory operated until two months after Chen won the presidential election in March 2000. It was reopened in early December 2003 as Chen kicked off his campaign for a second presidential term, which he won in March 2004. The factory closed at the end of that month.

"The anti-KMT elements [most of whom became DPP members after the party was established in 1986] relied on generating publicity to promote their ideals. This was the only channel through which they could fight against the KMT," Cheng says. "In contrast, the KMT has a strong grass-roots network of canvassers that can be easily mobilized for elections. They don't rely on publicity work as much as the DPP."

Voter Burnout

NCCU's Cheng sees  an element of burnout among some voters. While the 2001 legislative elections saw the participation of 66.2 percent of all eligible voters, the turnout for this year's legislative elections, which the KMT won in a landslide, was only 58.5 percent, a record low.

"We feel that there is always a campaign going on, as TV stations broadcast programs [with analysts discussing Taiwan's politics] showing sympathy toward a specific political camp and criticizing the rival camp throughout the year. In reality, these programs are nothing more than political campaigns, even though there may not be an election anytime soon," Cheng says.

But growing voter disenchantment has not made political parties less keen on offering campaign merchandise. "While the products of the Bian Hat Factory featured just one version of Chen's image, those produced for Hsieh's campaign have many," Chao says. A line of products bearing the image of Hsieh in an indigenous costume was already on sale in December last year. On February 14, Valentine's Day, Hsieh's campaign planned to introduce a pair of dolls of Hsieh and his wife.

Meanwhile, the Ma camp decided to focus on only two items, one of which is a stuffed horse, since ma is also the Chinese word for horse. The KMT campaign's merchandise went on sale in early January.

's election campaigns are also known for their outdoor advertisements. Large campaign billboards are frequently found on the outside of buildings, signs indicating bus routes are covered with campaign ads, and colorful flags promoting the candidates are planted on traffic islands and attached to lampposts. Blue pick-up trucks and vans slowly weave along roads and lanes, blaring campaign slogans and election songs. Free meals are also provided by candidates, mostly at outdoor banquets in rural areas. In short, there is virtually no way to ignore political campaigns during election season.

Political parties also rely on timely television advertisements to get their messages across. One day after South Korean President Lee Myung-bak was elected late last December, the DPP and KMT released television advertisements that sought to capitalize on Lee's success. Hsieh's headquarters stressed his similarities with Lee, noting that as the respective former mayors of and , they had both successfully rejuvenated the rivers running through their cities. Ma's advertisement emphasized his ambition to improve 's economy, which was reminiscent of Lee's campaign pledge to build into an economic powerhouse. "We bet Lee would win, so we started to prepare for the advertisement one week before the result of the Korean presidential election was known," says Chuang Chi-chang, deputy director of the publicity department of the Hsieh campaign.

Both parties rely heavily on the Internet to convey messages and build images for their candidates. While the DPP began exploring the digital arena early on, the KMT is catching up quickly. "For the first time in the KMT's campaign history, we are serious about letting supporters take part on our website and allowing them to interact with each other," says Yen Tong-ling, spokeswoman for the Ma campaign's online effort. The website was launched in the fall of last year and claimed 5,000 registered members by the middle of January. In addition to reading campaign news and information about Ma's platform, members can also set up blogs and post their own opinions. After events such as campaign-related press conferences, full-length videos are immediately posted online. "TV news usually only covers a fraction of the content of an event, but you can see them in their entirety on our site," Yen adds. From time to time she also interviews the candidates and posts their remarks online.

On the other hand, the Commercial Times, a Chinese-language local paper targeting businesspeople, suggests that with the difficulty of raising money and the growing public indifference to elections, the atmosphere surrounding this year's campaigns has been relatively subdued. Compared with the legislative elections in 2004, the income generated by bus companies from carrying election ads on the outside of buses this year plummeted 50 percent. The revenue generated from manufacturing legislative campaign flags also fell by 30 percent in northern and by 50 percent in southern . Although the dramatic drops are certainly related to the reduction of the number of seats in the legislature from 225 to 113, which had the effect of halving the number of candidates purchasing flags, voter burnout caused by incessant political campaigning likely also played a role.

Divine Inspiration

The presidential campaigns have also relied heavily on the time-honored election staple of visiting religious groups and temples dedicated to Buddhist or Taoist deities, which are worshipped by the majority of Taiwanese. Candidates are able to interact with voters by visiting temples, which often serve as community centers in rural areas, and footage of their visits often shows up on the evening news. Last December's inauguration of the Great Three Purities Shrine, an important new Taoist temple in , became a highly political occasion. Ma and Siew were guests of honor, as was President Chen, who was canvassing for the Hsieh camp. Chen gave the temple a plaque inscribed with the eye-catching English words "UN for " at the bottom and the Chinese characters for "May the Three Taoist Gods Protect " at the top. Hsieh spoke on the same day in about the need to hold the referendum on 's entry into the UN at a celebration of the founding of his camp's Taoist support group.

Not content with merely seeking divine help, 's presidential campaigns are also trying other means of ensuring good fortune. To reach Hsieh's campaign headquarters, callers must dial two fives followed by six eights, because the Mandarin word for the number "five" (wu) sounds similar to the word for "I" (wo), and because eight is an auspicious number in Chinese culture. One phone number for Ma's campaign headquarters begins with two sevens, followed by 191919. While the number seven is seen as lucky around the world, the Mandarin pronunciation for "one nine" (yi jiu) sounds close to Ma's given name, Ying-jeou. Similarly, it is no coincidence that Ma's headquarters is located at in .

Established in 1996, 's Green Party relies a great amount on the Internet because online publicity is cheaper and easier on the environment than printing campaign advertisements. It is not easy for smaller parties to raise money, but the Green Party has found creative methods of campaigning that are less costly and friendlier to the environment. For example, Calvin Wen, a senior party member, did not broadcast campaign slogans from loudspeakers mounted on trucks during his albeit unsuccessful campaign for a Taipei County district seat in January's legislative elections. Instead, he and other Green Party candidates promoted their platform by bicycling around the area. "For us, campaigning is a process of educating the public," he says.

Wen says that campaigns mounted by 's major parties have devolved into a process of collecting huge sums of money and then spending it to generate publicity. "Once you win an election, you have to figure out ways to recoup the money you spent on the campaign" he says. "That's the source of corruption."

The Third Society Party is another small party making the case for thrifty campaigning. "'s corruption has a lot to do with costly election campaigns," says Jou Yi-cheng, founder of the party and an unsuccessful candidate in January's legislative elections. " should make a law that puts a cap on campaign spending. The current election campaigns are just too wasteful."

A former assistant to DPP lawmakers, Wen says that some legislative candidates spend as much as NT$100 million (US$3 million) on their campaigns. The expense for a presidential campaign is much higher, Jou notes, and can reach billions of NT dollars.

Negative Campaigning

As the presidential election draws near, the number of negative campaign advertisements is growing. In the run-up to the legislative elections, voters were subjected to KMT and DPP television advertisements that accused the other party of corruption. While such allegations may not convince diehard party loyalists to reconsider their views, they may sway more moderate or undecided voters. Cheng explains that while negative campaigning may not make the electorate more likely to vote for the accusing party, it can prevent voters from supporting the party's opponents, especially if new information about an old scandal can be found.

"'s campaigns can turn especially ugly, in contrast with those in the and other countries, mainly because Taiwanese are split over the identity of as a state," NCCU's Cheng says. Public opinion in doesn't exert much pressure to curtail ugly campaigning, he adds, while in the , highly negative television advertisements generate more controversy, sometimes backfiring on their originators.

Regardless of the outcome of the presidential election, many Taiwanese will celebrate the fact that campaign season has come to a merciful end. But for now, Ma and Hsieh are fighting to stay in the public eye by bombarding the electorate with all of the publicity tools at their disposal, many of which are distinctive hallmarks of 's unique election culture.

Write to Oscar Chung at oscar@mail.gio.gov.tw