On June 5, 2013, the Promo-LEX Association organized a roundtable to present a methodology of civic monitoring of election campaigns’ and candidates’ financing. At the event, Pavel Postica, Program Director of the Promo-LEX Association, noted the need to monitor the financial aspect of electoral campaigns, and made a detailed presentation of the methodology and tools that will be used by Promo-LEX election observers. Representatives of civil society, electoral bodies and political parties present at the event welcomed the efforts of Promo-LEX in monitoring candidates’ finances, and assessed the presented methodology as a good and comprehensive tool, which can be continuously improved and adapted to the electoral legislation.
At the roundtable, Promo-LEX also presented the preliminary monitoring results of the use of tools developed within the methodology of monitoring electoral contestants’ finances. The inadequate performance of electoral bodies with regard to collecting information on campaign financing and the faulty way in which electoral contestants declared their electoral funds were stressed in particular.
Roundtable participants actively discussed several aspects of reporting and monitoring electoral finances. The debates focused largely on determining who has the obligation for financial reporting – a mayoral candidate or the political party who put them forth to this position. Representatives of political parties argued that political parties are national electoral contestants and are therefore required to submit financial reports to the CEC, and not to lower-level electoral bodies. On the other hand, arguments were presented in favor of the idea that, in fact, candidates in local elections register with District Electoral Councils and, according to Article 38 of the Electoral Code, they are required to submit financial reports to the body where they registered. Moreover, namely that body has the power to file complaints in court for sanctioning candidates for serious violations of campaign funding procedures.
Promo-LEX notes, in this context, that it remains open to participate in the discussion of proposals to improve the practices of monitoring electoral finances as well as the legal framework that would clarify the electoral contestants’ obligations to submit financial reports.
The roundtable was organised by Promo-LEX within the project “Strengthening Civic Monitoring of Political Parties’ and Candidates’ Finances”, implemented with the support of the East-European Foundation with funds provided by the Government of Sweden through the Swedish International Development and Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark/DANIDA. At the same time, the financing monitoring of the campaign for the 19 May 2013 elections was conducted within the project “Monitoring of New Local Elections of 19 May 2013”, which received financial assistance from the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI).
For more information, please contact: Nicholae Panfil, Project Coordinator
Tel: (022) 45-00-24, GSM: 079-38-18-42, email: [email protected]