Summary
An independent monitoring body should be created to review political and campaign finance.
Election Parts
Criteria
Quotes
- The legal framework should require periodic reporting at reasonable intervals of all contributions received and expenditure incurred by an electoral contestant.
- The legal framework should specifically identify the agency responsible for receiving and maintaining campaign contribution and expenditure reports. The legal framework should clearly specify where and when such reports are available for public inspection.
- Campaign costs can include salaries, transportation, office expenses, the purchase of print and electronic media, and the printing and distribution of campaign materials.
- It is a good practice to require both pre- and post-election disclosure of campaign spending.
- [The Electoral Commission] should be empowered to ensure that proper election expense returns are submitted on time, to inspect party accounts, and for parties to have properly audited and verified accounts.
- Political parties and candidates should account to the EMB for the use of such [public] resources.
- 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 the effectiveness of campaign finance rules, it is critical that responsibility for supervision be given to an independent and professional regulatory body, mandated to provide guidance to electoral stakeholders, check campaign finance reports and investigate potential breaches, and that it be endowed with sanctioning power in order to promote the effective implementation of the law and ensure the accountability of all stakeholders.
- Appointments to the regulator should be independent from political pressure, and should include checks to increase its impartiality, neutrality and financial independence.
- To ensure the effectiveness of campaign finance rules, it is critical that responsibility for supervision be given to an independent and professional regulatory body, mandated to provide guidance to electoral stakeholders, check campaign finance reports and investigate potential breaches, and that it be endowed with sanctioning power in order to promote the effective implementation of the law and ensure the accountability of all stakeholders.
- Appointments to the regulator should be independent from political pressure, and should include checks to increase its impartiality, neutrality and financial independence.
- An independent oversight agency must be free from political pressure. To achieve this, governments can make the agency directly accountable to parliament, create a competitive and meritocratic system of public appointments, and empower it to receive, investigate and report on complaints received from members of the public. To enforce compliance effectively, the agency needs the resources to operate at speed and scale.
- An impartial body should control campaign financing.
- Whichever body is tasked to review the party’s financial reports, effective measures should be taken in legislation and in practice to ensure the respective body’s independence from political pressure and commitment to impartiality. Such independence and impartiality are fundamental to its proper functioning.
- The obligations to promote the enjoyment of the right to freedom of opinion and expression require that States guarantee the transparency of all aspects of political and electoral processes, and should particularly put in place measures to: (...) (c) Ensure that the implementation of political financing regulations is overseen, monitored and enforced by the electoral authorities, the judiciary and other independent bodies.