241 Results
Quotes
Quotes based on international documents, law, and treaties- "The candidates, political parties (coalitions) participating in elections should, with periodicity stipulated by the laws, submit to the electoral bodies and/or other bodies, mentioned in the law, information and reports on receipt of all donations to their election financial funds, on their donors as well as on all their disbursements from those funds on financing of their election campaign. The electoral bodies shall provide for publication of the said information and reports in mass media and means of telecommunications mentioned in the laws."
- "It is commonly accepted that an effective election campaign needs sufficient resources. Parties and candidates would not be able to convey their programmes to the electorate without financial resources. Therefore political funding is considered a necessary condition for elections in modern democracies. Nevertheless, it should be clear that money may lead to corruption and to unfair political competition in the electoral process. Thus, it is important that election (and party) legislation contains clear and comprehensive regulations on party and campaign finances. "
- "Limitations on the amount of private contributions may consist of a maximum threshold on the amount of money that may be accepted from a single source, whereby different ceilings may apply for different types of donors."
- "To this effect, party financing legislation should include stipulations regulating at least four distinct aspects relating to the transparency of political finance: Disclosure: rules which oblige political parties to open up their financial accounts and reveal information on their levels of income, including the identity of donors, and expenditure."
- "Admittedly regulating party and campaign finances is a difficult task. There is a wide variety of regulations in operation throughout Europe and other world regions. Regulations may refer to party funding as a whole (including “routine activities”) or only to electoral campaigns. Some countries apply direct public financing, others allow only private financing. There are systems with contribution and expenditure limits, and others without them. There may be bans on certain types of contributions, as well as on certain types of expenditure. Moreover, electoral and party laws differ considerably with regard to the disclosure of party and campaign funds as well as with regard to the public access to the disclosed information. The variety of regulations makes it difficult to set common standards. "
- "Basically there are two forms of funding of parties and candidates: public funding and private funding, with contributions sometimes coming from foreign sources. The legal framework may provide for electoral campaign financing on the basis of the following internationally recognized standards: That there should be a transparent system of disclosure of the funding received by any party or candidate; That there should be no discrimination with regard to access to public funds for any party or candidate; That public funding should be made available to parties on an equitable basis; That there should be a level playing field among the parties or candidates."
- "Where a policy decision is taken to financially support political parties with taxpayers’ money, which is necessitated by the poor resource background of most political parties, an agreed upon formula must be used and adhered to in allocating funds to the contesting parties. A commonly used formula is according to the number of seats each party holds in Parliament."
- "As far as public funding is concerned, the principle of equal opportunities is of utmost importance. In general, there is a consensus on this principle of equal opportunities. Since money is involved, however, there are sometimes political conflicts about the interpretation of the principle. In may be applied in either a strict sense (equal treatment) or in a proportional sense (according to the strength in parliament or among the electorate). Thus, it is quite a challenge to find a generally accepted formula in the respective country. Relevant rules should be included in the law. "
- "The aim of gender-targeted public funding may be to reduce the financial burden for female candidates by ensuring that they receive more money to allow them to compete more effectively in elections, given the gender prejudices within the electorate."
- "The legal framework of party financing should specifically limit, prohibit or otherwise regulate contributions from foreign donors."
- "Financing of political parties must be fully transparent, which requires political parties, in particular: ii. to declare the identity of donors who give financial support exceeding a certain limit."
- "Information provided to party members, state agencies and the public must...clearly identify all individual contributions made by donors and parties, including the names of contributors. Information provided to party members, state agencies and the public must be: ...Reliable: State as well as social control heavily relies on having parties and other relevant actors provide the correct information. Given its importance, submitting false data is considered a crime in a number of countries. Timely: Reporting should be done as close to when the transaction was completed as possible since time allows for manipulation. Any information provided in the run-up to elections must be made available immediately to citizens. Intelligible: Information has to be presented in a user-friendly way. Background on different sources as well as searchable databases is necessary to empower individual citizens and the media to understand, interpret and use political finance data. Accessible: Data should not only be available upon request, but disclosed actively through a variety of channels. Modern information technologies allow state agencies to implement automated reporting and online monitoring via searchable datasets."
- "The ideal requirements for political finance regulation in post-conflict societies listed below should be viewed as goals for the international community to achieve given the challenging constraints in which they are operating. There are three key requirements in the areas of legal framework, resources for political actors and institutions...1. A legal framework for political finance regulation—contained in the electoral law, the political parties law or a separate political finance law—should include: Realistic requirements for financial reporting of electoral activity, including disclosure of private sources of funding for political activity (also with relatively high thresholds for public reporting)."
- "Transparency International recommends that governments make the following four commitments: (...) Introduce limits on sources and amounts of donations to political parties and candidates, and encourage a broad base of donors, to strike a healthy balance between public and private funding."
- "In addition to regulating financial donations, legislation should regulate in-kind support by private donors, both by individuals and by legal persons. (...) For that purpose, the monetary value of in-kind donations should be determined based on market price and should be listed in funding reports."
- "The way an electoral commission is funded may…affect its independent status. Where funds are provided through any special or block vote in the Ministry responsible for electoral matters, valuable time may have to be spent negotiating the budget with that Ministry, or the Ministry of Finance, as the case may be. It is believed that the budget for an electoral commission should be voted directly by Parliament."
- "The ideal requirements for political finance regulation in post-conflict societies listed below should be viewed as goals for the international community to achieve given the challenging constraints in which they are operating. There are three key requirements in the areas of legal framework, resources for political actors and institutions..2. Sufficient funding and other resources for electoral participants to effectively compete in elections and to remain committed to and confident in the fairness of the electoral process, including: Some form of (1) monetary support (perhaps through international trust funds) to provide electoral participants with effective competitive capacity."
- "The financing of political parties through public funds should be on condition that the accounts of political parties shall be subject to control by specific public organs (for example by a Court of Audit). States shall promote a policy of financial transparency of political parties that benefit from public financing."
- "[States should] ensure transparency of the electoral process, particularly in: 8.2.2. electoral campaign funding and party financing: legislation in this field is necessary not only to regulate the origin of funding and set a limit on expenditure, but also to enable all voters to have access to data on the nature and amount of campaign and party spending. "
- "First of all, funding must be transparent; such transparency is essential whatever the level of political and economic development of the country concerned. Transparency operates at two levels. The first concerns campaign funds, the details of which must be set out in a special set of carefully maintained accounts. In the event of significant deviations from the norm or if the statutory expenditure ceilings are exceeded, the election must be annulled. The second level involves monitoring the financial status of elected representatives before and after their term in office. A commission in charge of financial transparency takes formal note of the elected representatives’ statements as to their finances. The latter are confidential, but the records can, if necessary, be forwarded to the public prosecutor’s office. "
- "To ensure a transparent and fair financing system, and to avoid the possibility of circumventing relevant rules, both routine party funding and campaign finance must be addressed in legislation relevant to political parties and electoral campaigns in the same manner."
- "Such political parties may seek out and receive funds by means of public or private financing."
- "The ideal requirements for political finance regulation in post-conflict societies listed below should be viewed as goals for the international community to achieve given the challenging constraints in which they are operating. There are three key requirements in the areas of legal framework, resources for political actors and institutions..2. Sufficient funding and other resources for electoral participants to effectively compete in elections and to remain committed to and confident in the fairness of the electoral process, including:...(2) non-monetary support (free media time, material, or use of office space or other facilities, transportation, etc.) distributed to electoral participants through eligibility standards that are fair to emerging political forces but do not encourage participation merely to receive such benefits."
- "While it is understood that elections do not always take place on a completely level playing field, reasonable limitations on campaign expenditure could be introduced to avoid disproportionate expenditure on behalf of any candidate or party. Expenditures in regard to campaign may be regulated by the election law or separate legislation dealing with public financing if campaign funds are to be provided by the state."
- "Political parties and candidates should be partly financed through private means. Private sources of funding may be internal or external to the party."
- "The legal framework may provide for electoral campaign financing on the basis of the following internationally-recognized standards: That there should be a transparent system of disclosure of the funding received by any party or candidate."
- "The very basis of democratic governance require that the electorate be able to make informed choices. This demands that all contesting points of view be fairly and equitably communicated on a non-discriminatory basis, particularly in the media financed from public funds. State sponsored broadcasters carry a special responsibility for providing balanced coverage of the election campaign."
- "We, Ministers and Heads of Delegation of the States and Governments of Countries using French as a common language, (…) 4 - Undertake the following commitments: (…) B. For the holding of free, fair and transparent elections (...) 11. To take the necessary steps to move towards national financing of elections with public funds."
- "We, Ministers and Heads of Delegation of the States and Governments of Countries using French as a common language, (…) 4 - Undertake the following commitments: (…) B. For the holding of free, fair and transparent elections (...) 11. To take the necessary steps to move towards national financing of elections with public funds."
- "To this effect, party financing legislation should include stipulations regulating at least four distinct aspects relating to the transparency of political finance: Enforcement: a legal system of sanctions to ensure that regulations on party financing are not evaded and to impose penalties when the law is breached. The provisions regarding transparency, control and enforcement of party financing should be laid down in public law. Almost every legal framework of party financing will include some provisions for disclosure, reporting, monitoring and enforcement."
- "It should be remembered that in the field of public funding of parties or campaigns the principle of equality of opportunity applies (“strict” or “proportional” equality).All parties represented in parliament must in all cases qualify for public funding. However, in order to ensure equality of opportunity for all the different political forces, public funding might also be extended to political formations that represent a large section of the electorate and put up candidates for election. The funding of political parties from public funds must be accompanied by supervision of the parties’ accounts by specific public bodies (e.g. the Auditor General’s Department). States should encourage a policy of financial openness on the part of political parties receiving public funding."
- "The Electoral Commission should…be legally empowered to prohibit certain types of expenditures so as to limit the undue impact of money on the democratic process and the outcome of an election."
- "This Convention signatory states shall provide for an open and transparent nature of all money donations to candidates, political parties (coalitions), participating in elections, in order to avoid any prohibited donations to candidates, political parties (coalitions) that have put forward the candidates (lists of candidates) in elections."
- "Items identified by reporting rules should strike an adequate balance between the party's right to privacy as a voluntary association and the public's right to know the important financial details of the struggle for power. The disclosure provisions' details on the sources and amounts of large donations must take into account the potential to identify interested money and the desirability of confidentiality in grass-roots support to parties and candidates."
- "The ideal requirements for political finance regulation in post-conflict societies listed below should be viewed as goals for the international community to achieve given the challenging constraints in which they are operating. There are three key requirements in the areas of legal framework, resources for political actors and institutions...1. A legal framework for political finance regulation—contained in the electoral law, the political parties law or a separate political finance law—should include: Provisions that are clear, simple and unambiguous and supplemented by implementing regulations issued by the election management body or special body for political finance regulation."
- "No sum of money should be required of a party on behalf of the state as a condition of commencing proceedings which would be unreasonable having regard to the matters in issue. (12) In so far as the court fees constitute a manifest impediment to justice they should be, if possible, reduced or abolished. The system of court fees should be examined in view of its simplification."
- "Strictly forbidden by law, but rather difficult to prove, is vote buying, i.e. the distribution of goods or money to people combined with the request to vote for a particular candidate or party. This is allegedly common practice in the pre-election period and on election day in some countries, according to international observers. In order to reduce the risk of vote buying on election day, it is important to guarantee the secrecy of the vote. It should also be ensured (and observed) that voters do not leave the polling station without depositing their ballots in the ballot boxes because some voters may try to take blank ballots outside the polling station and give or sell them to other people. As a rule, any unused ballot paper should remain at the polling station. However, in several cases, there were confirmed instances of stamped and signed ballots circulating outside polling stations on election day. "
- "While it inevitably remains the State’s responsibility to set both the method and the level of funding, it is nevertheless imperative that the system should be so designed that: - it cannot be used to exert editorial influence or threaten institutional autonomy – either of which would undermine the operational independence of the public service media; - the public service media is consulted over the level of funding required to meet their mission and purposes, and their views are taken into account when setting the level of funding; - the funding provided is adequate to meet the agreed role and remit of the public service media, including offering sufficient security for the future as to allow reasonable future planning; - the process for deciding the level of funding should not be able to interfere with the public service media’s editorial autonomy."
- "The legal framework should require that all levels of electoral bodies be established in a timely manner before an election and be adequately funded. It is crucial that the legal framework contains provisions as to how funding for the ongoing operations of the EMB will be made available. Some of the major methods of funding election operations are: The budget is allocated to an EMB through a department of the government (though in many emerging democracies this arrangement has not worked very satisfactorily); The budget is directly voted by parliament without the intervention of a department, sometimes through the medium of a standing all-party parliamentary committee; A lump sum advance allocation, with some guiding principles, is provided for. Once the EMB has conducted the electoral operation and exhausted that amount, the necessary audited sums are approved by the legislature; The EMB has direct and uncontrolled access to the State treasury for funding elections and reports to parliament only after an election."
- "Public financing must be aimed at each party represented in Parliament. In order, however, to ensure the equality of opportunities for the different political forces, public financing could also be extended to political bodies representing a significant section of the electoral body and presenting candidates for election. The level of financing could be fixed by legislator on a periodic basis, according to objective criteria."
- "The ideal requirements for political finance regulation in post-conflict societies listed below should be viewed as goals for the international community to achieve given the challenging constraints in which they are operating. There are three key requirements in the areas of legal framework, resources for political actors and institutions...1. A legal framework for political finance regulation—contained in the electoral law, the political parties law or a separate political finance law—should include: Realistic limitations on monetary and non-monetary contributions from private sources for political activity, probably with a relatively high limit on the size of donations."
- "The ideal requirements for political finance regulation in post-conflict societies listed below should be viewed as goals for the international community to achieve given the challenging constraints in which they are operating. There are three key requirements in the areas of legal framework, resources for political actors and institutions....3. Effective institutions and processes for enforcement of political finance regulation, including: Penalties and sanctions that are graduated and appropriate to the seriousness of the violation of political finance restrictions, reporting requirements or other regulations."
- "Any irregularity in the financing of a political party shall entail sanctions proportionate to the severity of the offence that may consist of the loss of all or part of public financing for the following year. Any irregularity in the financing of an electoral campaign shall entail, for the party or candidate at fault, sanctions proportionate to the severity of the offence that may consist of the loss or the total or partial reimbursement of the public contribution, the payment of a fine or another financial sanction or the annulment of the election."
- "The ideal requirements for political finance regulation in post-conflict societies listed below should be viewed as goals for the international community to achieve given the challenging constraints in which they are operating. There are three key requirements in the areas of legal framework, resources for political actors and institutions....3. Effective institutions and processes for enforcement of political finance regulation, including: As noted above, a nonpartisan, independent institution responsible for enforcement of political finance regulations with sufficient authority, training and resources to perform enforcement responsibilities."
- "Legislation on party financing should at least cover fundamental issues such as traditional sources of finance, private donations, public subsidies to political parties, the financing of election campaigns and provisions for disclosure, reporting, monitoring and enforcement."
- "To ensure a transparent and fair campaign finance system, both routine political party financing and campaign financing must be considered in the legislation."
- "The state should provide support to political parties and candidates in order to prevent dependence on private financial donors and guarantee equality of chances."
- "Legislation should prohibit donations in cash, especially donations exceeding the legal threshold, and should require that these be made by cheque or bank transfer in order to identify the donor entity."
- "States should specifically limit, prohibit or otherwise regulate donations from foreign donors."
- "Rules which require a party to maintain and make available for public scrutiny records identifying donations exceeding a certain value and their donors, may be said to embody the principle of transparency."