Twenty-one political parties, which is almost half of the parties registered in Moldova, do not have the procedure for paying membership dues regulated in their statutes or other internal documents. This is the preliminary conclusion of “Promo-LEX” Association, which, supported financially by the British Embassy in Chisinau, initiated a study of the practices and methods used by political parties to finance their activity and carry out statutory tasks. The final study will be presented at end-March.
Cornelia Calin, financial analyst of “Promo-LEX”, in a news conference at IPN, said the preliminary analysis showed that the statutes of 21 parties do not regulate the size of dues, in breach of the amendments made to the Law on Political Parties in April 2015. In 18 cases, the membership dues are set and regulated by internal documents, but this is against the law. The statutes of another three parties do not contain provisions that would regulate the payment of dues or their size.
According to Cornelia Calin, the statutes of only 22 parties stipulate the size of dues and the dues payment procedure. In seven cases, the dues vary between 1 and 5 lei a month. Four parties set the dues at 6 to 20 lei, while another four parties – at 21 to 100 lei. In another six cases, the dues vary between 0.2% and 2.5% of the monthly income, while one party set the dues at 5% of the minimum official salary.
Programs director at “Promo-LEX” Pavel Postica said the lack of relevant regulations in the statutes of parties became a violation of the Law on Political Parties on January 1, 2016. Attention to dues is paid because these represent the parties’ main source of self-financing.
According to Pavel Postica, the Ministry of Justice should recommend the parties to regulate the procedure for paying dues and their size by the statutes. By March 31, the parties must report the incomes and costs for 2015 to the Central Election Commission.
The experts of “Promo-LEX” said they didn’t expect to see that half of the registered parties do not have such regulations. A surprise for them was that there are large, institutionalized parties among these. The Association’s preliminary conclusions contain no party names.
