An allowance of $2.50 per voter may not sound much for Legislative Council candidates to spend canvassing the huge new geographical constituencies adopted for next year's elections.
But $10 million is an almost impossibly large amount for some political parties to raise. This applies particularly to those in the pro-democracy camp, who lack business funding and, in many cases since July 1, jobs. Yet funding is what they will need if they plan to contest all 20 directly-elected seats next May following the administration's decision to raise the campaign expense limit to $500,000 per seat, or around $2.50 per elector.
This is more than double the ceiling of $200,000 per seat which applied at the 1995 election. But on that occasion Hong Kong had far smaller district-based constituencies. Those expenditure limits were widely criticised as unrealistically low, allowing barely one mailshot per voter. Academics suspect that many candidates exceeded them, but concealed the fact.
Now Hong Kong is moving from one extreme to the other. The proposed expense ceilings are so high that they will put candidates who lack well-heeled backers at a disadvantage since they will not be able to spend as much as their rivals. Executive Councillors who defend these new limits have drawn selective comparisons with experience in other countries. They have even hinted that richer candidates are justified in spending more since they have less free time for campaigning. Such arguments can only undermine faith in the electoral process.
But the real problem is that the controversy over spending reflects difficulties inherent in the change in the voting system. The form of proportional representation adopted requires huge constituencies. This leads, inevitably, to high campaign expenses. One solution would be government funding for political parties, but that is a radical step for which Hong Kong is probably not yet ready.
Failing this, it would be best for provisional legislators to reduce the expense limit to a level that is more affordable for all while not unrealistically low. The influence of money on elections is a matter of widespread concern in Asia, Europe and the United States. Given the doubts about the fairness of next May's electoral arrangements, it would be unfortunate if this issue cast a further cloud over the credibility of the polls.
