A number of civil society organizations criticize the latest amendments made to the electoral legislation and demand reviewing them. The organizations signed a statement by which they seek diminishing the cap on donations and reducing the allocations from the state budget for political parties.
In a news conference at IPN, Nicolae Panfil, secretary of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections, said the bill with amendments covered a long path. It was formulated by a working group under the Central Election Commission, which included representatives of civil society, but the amendments adopted in the final reading by Parliament this month meet not the demands of civil society, but clan interests.
Cornelia Calin, financial analyst of the Association “Promo-LEX”, which monitored the election campaign of 2014, said the parties didn’t declare expenses of at least 15 million lei and this is a conclusive example of lack of transparency in expenditure reporting. There were made many donations of under 100,000 lei at a time when the Central Election Commission can ask providing information about the sources of income only from donors offering more than 100,000 lei. That’s why “Promo-LEX” insists on introducing a legal provision that will allow the electoral authority to seek explanations also from donors providing lower sums, starting with 75,000 lei.
Andrei Brighidin, the representative of East Europe Foundation, said the idea of financing the political parties from the state budget derived from the necessity of diminishing the influence of a limited group of donors on parties through the provided money. Civil society proposed that the cap on donations should be 20 and, respectively, 40 average official salaries for private individuals and legal entities. But these suggestions weren’t accepted and the MPs raised the proposed cap ten times, to 200 and 400 average official salaries respectively, diminishing thus the efficiency of the law.
According to Alexei Buzu, executive director of the Partnership for Development Center, the share of 0.2% of the state budget set for funding parties is too high at a time when the country’s economy is weak and the cap on donations is very high. Civil society demands reducing the share to 0.02% with the possibility of increasing it if the cap on donations is decreased and mechanisms are implemented to promote women and young people to elective posts.
The news conference was held with support from the German foundation “Hanns Seidel” within the project “European integration as a national idea with the potential to strengthen Moldovan society” that is implemented by IPN News Agency.
