Costly election campaign, complete spending verification expected

Rallys, halls, posters, media ads, consulting companies, and rented offices have left the impression of a costly election campaign by most political subjects in the February 9th Parliamentary Elections. In this election, a political subject has been able to spend up to 2,047,000 euros.

The reform of organisations “Democracy in Action” that has monitored the election campaign in accordance with legal regulations estimates that the campaign by most subjects seemed more expensive than the cost limit.

Eugene Calcolly, from “Democracy in Action”, says that based on monitoring trains, most subjects have campaigned costlyly. “It's on the border of two million euros. It seems that political subjects are at the limit of specific expenditures, and some of them may have exceeded this limit”, Calcoli says.

The Office for Registering, Certification and Financial Control of Central Election Commission Political Subjects, as well as the Financial Control Unit through officials through municipalities have been monitoring campaigning on the ground and data will be used to compare the financial reports of political parties.

Besnik Buzhala, chief of this office, has told Kosovo Radio that gatherings of certified political subjects, their rented offices and their promotional materials have been monitored.

The data has been collected and they will be submitted to the audience, which will audit the reports of the political subjects' financial declaration to confirm whether they have reported correctly and discovered all their expenses during the” campaign, Buzhala says.

Political subjects are obliged to hand over these financial reports 30 days after the certificate of the final election outcome.

Ylli Buleskaj, director of the Agency for Prevention of Corruption, has also confirmed to Kosovo that the agency he runs has warned some officials that have not reported donations to political subjects in the campaign, as possible indirect form of influence on the vote.

Financial transactions of political parties or related persons are also monitored by the Financial Intelligence Unit, but this entity has declined to elaborate on monitored cases of transactions that connect with the election campaign.

Kosovo's budget allocates 4.8m euros annually in support of political parties in the country, but not specifically for campaigning, and most of them declare in their financial reports only revenues from the state budget, but not other financial resources.

“won't remember nor much analysis to understand that political parties receive finance from various private donors, but that the state has no resource shortage to investigate them”, Calcoli said.

The Law on Financing Political Partys limits companies that finance a political subject that cannot receive tenders not only when that party is in power but three years later, and that is why most subjects do not disclose the resources of their donations.