Forget Christmas: if you're a Taiwanese activist, the best time to open your presents is during a close presidential election race likely to be won on the margins. Ahead of January's polls, nationalist Kuomintang incumbent Ma Ying-jeou and chief rival Democratic Progressive party chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen have ditched the traditional Taiwanese political playbook and gone for support from aboriginal, landowner, gay, women, animal and environmental rights groups.

New policies on nuclear power and tougher stances on industrial polluters, unheard of a few years ago, have been promised in a bid to win an election that is likely to be decided by a few percentage points. "Taiwan has a strong democracy. We can protest, when, where, and how we like, and the activism community has taken advantage of that," says Pan Han-shen, founder of Green party Taiwan. "But while we win some successes at election time, we do need to build a stronger platform overall, so we don't get marginalised by the two big political parties."

For the time being, rights groups have won concessions from political parties that previously championed economic development at all costs. Ma, under pressure from an electorate that saw disturbing similarities between Japan's Fukushima and Taiwan's nuclear power industry, vowed to shut down three ageing reactors by 2025. Under the plan, a fourth reactor, currently under construction near Taipei, will only open if stiffer safety, management and maintenance requirements are met. It was a marked departure from the Kuomintang party line of quietly expanding nuclear generation on this energy-hungry island 180km off China's shores.

Tsai, 55, a former vice-premier who holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and is the first female candidate for top office in any modern Chinese state, vowed to scrap nuclear power altogether. "The KMT is playing catch-up. When they ruled for over 50 years they didn't pay any attention to these issues. But Ma is seeing how useful they can be, come election time," says DPP spokesman Lin Chun-hsien. "But it isn't just the votes. A stamp of approval from these groups is highly beneficial for the image of either party or candidate."

Ma has already done substantially more for social causes than his KMT predecessors, who were driven by the need to prop up the economy's GDP and export growth numbers. In June, he ordered the closure of much of a Formosa Plastics Group petrochemical plant after a series of highly toxic fires broke out. The fires happened after protests against the plant and a report that found that cancer rates in the local community were five times higher than the national average.

In April, he announced that a long-planned proposal to build another petrochemical plant, the $21bn Kuokuang complex on Taiwan's west coast, would not go ahead after environmentalists complained that it would destroy the island's largest wetlands, home to the critically endangered Taiwanese pink dolphin. "For us, the decision to stop Kuokuang going ahead was one of the biggest in recent years. Before that the DPP was supposedly the environmentalist party. However, President Ma realises that today's context is very different and we need to strike a balance between social and economic development," says KMT spokesman Yin Wei.

Both candidates have promised Taiwan's aboriginal communities economic and land rights benefits for their support. Animal protection activists have been told that animal cruelty laws will be strengthened. Women's groups will have representation quotas raised in political arenas, and gay groups will see anti-discrimination laws improved. Sex workers were acknowledged when a bill was passed legalising the establishment of red-light districts.

"Four years ago, Ma came in on a landslide and didn't need minority or fringe groups to get elected. But this election's going down to the wire and the public's better understanding of social issues has prompted both candidates to reach out," says Yeh-lih Wang, chair of political science at National Taiwan University. "While this is a new phenomenon in Taiwan, if one of them wins on the back of fringe- element support, future campaign managers will be paying much more attention to activist groups."

With all the promises being made, some members of Taiwan's activist community are concerned that the winner at the ballot box may eventually renege on pledges.