CIP: Mozambicans increasingly pay for political parties’ election campaigns

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CIP: Mozambicans increasingly pay for political parties’ election campaigns

3:40 CAT | 07 Aug 2019

Mozambican voters are paying more and more for political party electoral campaigns which in turn fail to give them a detailed account of the money spent, the Centre for Public Integrity of Mozambique (CIP) claims.

Voters’ contribution to state funding for political party campaigns has almost doubled since 2004, according to a study by the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP) released on Tuesday.

According to CIP researcher Aldemiro Bande, while in 2004 the contribution of each voter was four meticais, the equivalent of about 6 Euro cents, in 2014 it was seven meticais (10 Euro cents).

This figure will rise further in this year’s elections, when public funding for parties is expected to increase by 19% compared to 2014, with total costs estimated at 85 million meticais (more than EUR 1,200,000), the CIP further notes.

Bildergalerie Wahlkampf 2014 Mosambik — *Renamo and Frelimo have received more than half of state funds for election campaigns, reveals CIP*

Accountability

Aldemiro Bande criticises the fact that no reasons for these increases is presented, nor is any detailed justifications for the money already spent offered.

“From an analysis of the accounts reports, which are presented by the National Election Commission [CNE] after the electoral process, it appears that they do not provide detailed information on the spending made by political parties with state funds,” Bande told a press conference in Maputo.

Furthermore, the CNE’s criteria for access to public funding allows parties with a poor history of accountability to continue to receive state funds.

“Although many parties do not account [for expenditure], and generally speaking they do not, there has not yet been any lawsuit against the political parties which do not,” Bande says.

Equal treatment of parties

The CIP hopes that the CNE will not approve nominations for this year’s elections from any registered party that did not fully account for the amount of funding received for the general elections of 2014.

The CIP also recommends that stricter mechanisms for monitoring political parties expenditure be established to avoid misappropriation, and advocates the timely allocation of public resources based on fairer distribution criteria in order to safeguard equality in the treatment of competing parties.

“The funding criteria set by the CNE in the 1999, 2004 and 2009 elections favoured the main competing forces. Frelimo [Mozambican Liberation Front] and Renamo [Mozambican National Resistance] alone received about 51% of the total. funds,” Bande points out.

“For this year, the definition of allocation criteria will not take into account the principle of proportional representation, so that there is no state-specific fund that is channelled specifically to political parties with seats in the Assembly of the Republic,” he explains.

The CIP does however consider state financing for political parties’ electoral campaigns essential to ensure balanced electoral competition among competing political forces.

Source: Deutsche Welle