Parties, nontransparent about campaign financing

What is noted, according to civil society representatives, is that there is a match between income and spending.

All parties declare high deficits in spending, but also lack transparency about resources from which they have provided them.

Betim Musliu from the Kosovo Institute for Justice tells Free Europe Radio that there are generally no political changes in the increase in transparency for all political parties' spending in financing campaigns.

He says there are still numerous expenses, which have been seen to be done, but which do not figure they are on political party lists.

There is a lack of transparency and accountability in this area. So political parties continue to be closed organisations, which do not show reality in terms of budget spending”, Musliu says.

In publishing data from the Central Election Commission, explains that political subjects, primarily the largest ones, the Vetevendosje Movement, the Democratic League of Kosovo, the Democratic Party of Kosovo, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, the Social Democrats, the Social Democrat Initiative, the New Kosovo Alliance and the Party of Justice, have spent about two million euros.

These parties have claimed to have had about half a million euros in revenues, of this value around 209 thousand euros are donations, while over 250 thousand euros are the means shared by the Assembly of Kosovo.

Based on these data presented by the Central Election Commission, it finds that political parties have deficit of over 1.5m euros.

Representatives of civil society who have monitored the election process are suspicious of the nontransparity of the campaign tools, even looking for the source of these means.

“The consequences of this lack of transparency are great, because the elected people who come from these political parties as long as in achieving their goals are not transparent at all, then we cannot expect even a good government, which should be built on the principles of the rule of the law of good governance”, Musliu estimates.

Valmir Elesi, spokesman at the Central Election Commission, tells Radio Free Europe that in order to boost transparency, the Central Election Commission has published the public information file of political subjects and candidates from the early elections campaign that was held on 6 October.

He stressed that Article 43 of the Law for General Elections specifys that the CEC through the Office for Registeration of Political Partys and Certificates creates and preserves a public information file, which contains the donors' registry of each political subject, the financial publishing reports of the campaign of political subjects delivered to the CEC, and financial publishing forms for elected candidates.

These “that have been published are not audited reports. The auditing of reports is made by audiences who choose Kosovo's Assembly through the Commission for Public Finance Oversight and of course that even reports after auditing will be published”, Elez notes.

Rezarta Delibashzade ão Krasniqi from the Organisation for Democracy for Development tells Radio Free Europe that it is positive that the CEC has long published political subject spending reports during the election campaign.

She also says, that one aspect that stands out by reports analysis is the small amount of donations of around 200,000 euros to the five main political subjects.

“A number of big businesses extend multiple donations higher than legal restrictions of no more than ten thousand euros within the year, prompting political subjects not to declare these sums through informal roads at all. This makes spending easier without observing the rules of procurement. Otherwise, it cannot be explained that parties have spent three times as much as they have had tools available, and that is only according to official statements, because the sums may be markedly higher”, Delibashzade 58 Krasniqi points out.

The law on financing political parties, financial and material resources of political subjects consists of public financing through the budget of the Republic of Kosovo. The amount of budgetary means, dedicated to funding for support of political subjects, cannot exceed 0.17 per cent of Kosovo's budget and other donations.

On the basis of the Law for General Elections in the Republic of Kosovo, however, the Central Election Commission defines the maximum of campaign spending, based on the total number of voters registered on the voters' list, at the time of recent refreshment by the CEC.