Legislation on electoral financing in Gagauzia is incomplete, NGO

The Youth Center Piligrim-Demo that is based in the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia analyzed the financing of the election campaigns of the candidates for a seat in the People’s Assembly and established that the legislation in this field is incomplete. The Association’s executive director Mihail Sercheli told a news conference that the transparency of the way the money is allocated and spent for electoral purposes is not ensured. According to the director, a shortcoming is also the fact that there are no penalties for the violation of the electoral legislation. This makes the election runners avoid presenting information about the costs incurred in the elections and the sources from which they finance the election campaigns. Mihail Sercheli also said that the electoral authority of Gagauzia does not have abilities and financial resources to ensure full control over the financing of election campaigns. “The financing of runners’ election campaigns that precede the regional elections in Gagauzia is an aspect that practically has never been in the center of attention,” said the executive director of Piligrim-Demo. According to him, most of the financial reports submitted to the electoral authority provoke serious suspicions as regards the plenitude and truthfulness of the data. No report indicated costs related to the remuneration of work, the rent of vehicles and the placement of political advertisements. Many election runners did not make public the income statements before the elections for the People’s Assembly, this being a mandatory condition. The NGO made a series of recommendations for ensuring the transparent and correct financing of the election campaigns in the Gagauz regional elections, including to impose penalties for the non-observance of the financing rules like excluding the candidate from the electoral race, and to work out a mechanism that would define the form and method of presenting financial reports. It also said that the electoral authority of Gagauzia should be outfitted with the necessary technical resources and materials so that it could efficiently and completely monitor the financing of election campaigns and could analyze the financial reports of the runners.