Public financing of political parties will not resolve political corruption – CoE Expert

By adopting the Law on political parties, Moldova will join the majority of European countries that provide public financing for political parties, which is an improvement, although public funds will not resolve the issue of political corruption, Marcin Walecki, Council of Europe expert told the Conference “Promoting Transparency and Accountability of Political Parties in Moldova”. The expert further stated that besides passing this law, there is a need for very strict measures of foreign and internal control, as well as for auditing parties’ financing. In other countries it took a long period of time to establish an audit system of public finances and that is the reason why no one expects that Moldova will implement these measures faster. However, the implementation of the law is a very good start for combating political corruption, and CoE will work very hard to implement it, Walecki added. According to deputy-speaker Iurie Rosca, during the discussions with the foreign experts it was mentioned the issue on maintaining the compulsory level of five thousand members for a party. According to the cited source, in order to provide minimal financing to a political party from the state budget, it should attract a sufficient number of voters, at local and national level. Rosca trusts that by the end of this Parliamentary session it will be managed to systemise all the proposals and suggestions, so that the law is passed in second reading. The chairman of the specialised parliamentary commission, Vladimir Turcan said that another key issue relates to financing extra-parliamentary parties. The experts backed the idea, mentioning that other issues are to be debated, such as the financing of parties by foreign citizens, and the possibility for foreigners to become members of Moldovan parties. The authors of the draft law disapprove these ideas, at least at the present stage. The sum which will be allotted from the state budget yearly for financing political parties will be 0.05% of the revenue collected for the given budgetary year. According to the draft law, a half of the sum will be distributed to political parties according to the number of seats obtained in the parliamentary elections and which meet the following requirements: registered with the Central Election Committee as electoral candidates; exceeded the electoral threshold; were included in legally formed parliamentary factions. The rest of the of the sum will be distributed according to the number of votes obtained in local general elections, with the only condition to win 20 mandates in the representative bodies of the territorial-administrative units of second level. It is expected that these provisions will come into force on 1 January 2008.