Now, with the election coming, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has asked the nation's big businesses, its traditional backers, for roughly $170 million to finance its campaign.

Russia is a traditional backer of Serbia.

A more serious difficulty could be disaffection for Mr. Khan among Pakistan's business elite, the traditional backers of political campaigns here.

But in the end, traditional Democratic backers, including union members, women and voters in Essex and Hudson counties, turned out in big numbers.

However, he has come under severe criticism from some of his traditional backers, particularly in the labor movement, for his support for the bill.

As the world's largest predominantly Shiite country, Iran is the traditional foreign backer of Afghanistan's Shiites, roughly 20 percent of the country's population.

Once in place, the plan will enable a reformed Lloyd's, increasingly supported by corporate investors rather than its traditional individual backers, to continue unencumbered by the past.

Even the Madras Mail, a traditional backer of the party, attacked its ineptitude and patronage.

The party's traditional backers on Wall Street and in big business have been alarmed by the rasping populism of Mr. Buchanan.

But this has not led Chile's upper class, the military's traditional backer, to call for a coup, in part because Chile's wealthy fear a reaction from the country's trading partners.