On 23 January 2016, an instructional workshop for Promo-LEX monitors took place as part of the project “Combating political corruption in the Republic of Moldova by improving the legal framework on political party financing and through civic supervision”.
“Political party financing, control over parties by economic interest groups or oligarchs, political corruption, the funding of parties from outside the country, party switching – all of these headline issues arise from the same theme: practically no one knows how or by whom the political parties of Moldova are financed. And here we have a host of conjectures without any real analysis in this area”, said Pavel Postica, director of the Monitoring Democratic Processes Program at the Promo-LEX Association.
“In the course of this short project we intend to analyze the subject of party financing in order to understand the real picture and convey it to society, especially at this turning point when funding for political parties from the state budget is about to be put into effect. At the same time, we will see how the parties react when they are invited to discuss this fairly sensitive subject,” Pavel Postica added.
In the next two months, more than 35 monitors will conduct interviews with official representatives of political parties at central and regional offices throughout the whole of the Republic of Moldova. The discussions will focus on several aspects of collecting income and making expenses and all the collected data will be reported in a thematic study. In particular, the study will contain an analysis of the existing legal framework for political party financing, international standards and practices in that domain, and the statutes and financial reports of political parties.
In the future, the Monitoring Democratic Processes Program will work on designing a methodology for civic monitoring of political party financing and electoral campaigns as well as of the funding received by parties from the state budget in proportion to the number of votes obtained in parliamentary and local elections.
We note that the activity of Promo-LEX monitors is based on the principles of impartiality, transparency, and responsibility, democratic norms and values, international standards of monitoring, and accuracy and professionalism in formulating conclusions. All monitors sign the Code of Conduct for Monitors of the Promo-LEX Association.
The scope of the project “Combating political corruption in the Republic of Moldova by improving the legal framework on political party financing and through civic supervision” is an analysis of the current situation in the area of political party financing, the improvement of regulations on the financing of political parties and civic supervision of political party financing.
For more details, please contact: Carolina Bondarciuc, Promo-LEX Press Officer: GSM 069637849, Tel/Fax (+373 22) 450024, e-mail:[email protected]