The legislative body adopted the bill on the financing of political parties in the first reading. The parties will receive state budget allocations depending on the results achieved in the parliamentary or local elections. The bill also provides for penalties for violating the provisions on party financing. Even if it’s passed in the final reading, the law will not be applied in this year’s electoral period, IPN reports.

Under the bill, the parties will open a special bank account entitled “Electoral Fund” to which all the financial resources offered to parties will be transferred, including donations and membership dues. A private individual can make donations to one or several parties. The donations cannot exceed 20 monthly official average salaries set for a particular year. The donations made by a legal entity cannot exceed 40 monthly official average salaries. The financial resources collected annually by a party as donations and dues must represent less than 0.25% of the state budget revenues planned for a particular year.

Direct or indirect financing of election campaigns of electoral candidates by other states, by foreign, international and mixed institutions and organizations and by individuals who are not citizens of Moldova is banned. The use in elections or referendums of funds coming from abroad or of undeclared public funds will be penalized with a fine of 1,000 to 3,000 lei in the case of private individuals and of 6,000 to 10,000 lei in the case of persons holding responsible posts.

The financing of parties by Moldovans who didn’t reach 18, people declared incapable by definitive court decision, anonymous persons and public authorities is also be banned.

For the first time, the ordering by parties whose annual incomes or expenses exceed 1 million lei of an audit of the financial management reports at least once in three years will be made mandatory.

The parties and electoral blocs and the independent candidates, within three days of their registration as electoral contenders, will present a report on the money collected for the election campaign. The falsification of these reports will be punished with a fine of 4,000 to 10,000 lei or up to three years in jail, in both cases with the deprivation of the right to hold particular posts or perform particular activities for a period of up to five years.

The parties will be financed from the state budget through the Central Election Commission. The allocations for them will not exceed 0.2% of the state budget revenues. 50% of the sum will be distributed to parties proportionally to the results achieved in the parliamentary elections and 50% - proportionally to the results achieved in the local elections.