The way in which the political parties and election campaigns are funded directly influences the involvement of young people and women in politics. When the financial costs of political life increase, the financial capacity of candidates becomes an essential element in obtaining high-ranking posts. As the young people and women in Moldovan politics are less wealthy compared with men from politics, this is a significant barrier to ensuring the equitable representation of young people and women in the decision-making process, consider representatives of the Partnership for Development Center and of the National Youth Council of Moldova. These formulated a number of proposals for the election campaign and political party funding reform from the perspective of young people and gender equality.
In a news conference at IPN, Partnership for Development Center consultant Alina Andronache said that Parliament in 2015 adopted significant changes to the legislation on party and election campaign funding. A number of analyses showed that the reform didn’t achieve its goal. Thus, of the three major objectives, particular progress was made only in ensuring transparency in parties’ incomes and costs. The capping of donations didn’t reduce the costs of campaigns and parties, while the allocation of state funds for party funding didn’t reduce financing from private sources.
According to secretary general of the National Youth Council of Moldova Igor Ciurea, statistics show there are 1.23 million people aged between 14 and 35 in Moldova. This is one third of the population. If the 18-35 age bracket is reduced given that one can become involved in political life when coming of age, this segment will represent slightly over one fourth. The young people hope to have the same representation level or at least a comparable level in the decision-making bodies. “Regrettably, the representation of young people is much below 10% and we try to understand the barriers and how we can influence the inclusion of young people in politics in the Republic of Moldova,” stated Igor Ciurea. He noted that a study carried out by the Partnership for Development Center shows the costs are the biggest obstacle faced by an electoral contender, while the young people are not those who have much money.
Partnership for Development Center programs director Rodica Ivascu said it is suggested reducing the ceiling on incomes 30 times. Thus, the annual incomes of a political party from membership dues and donations should not exceed 0.01% of the state budget revenues for a particular year. Another proposal is to reduce the cap on donations 50 times so that the donations made by a private individual to one or several parties in a budgetary year do not exceed four official average salaries for a particular year. The donations made by legal entities should not exceed eight average official salaries in a budgetary year.
