Moldova’s pro-European president, Maia Sandu, who has denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and accused Russia of trying to oust her in a coup, said Moscow had channelled the equivalent of nearly $5 million in two months in financing for “criminal groups”. These include a banned party led by fugitive businessman Ilan Shor.
Moldovans vote on Sunday in elections seen as a barometer of Sandu’s pro-European drive. A open-air rally tens of thousands strong in Chisinau backed her policies in May, but support is less certain in smaller cities and rural areas.
I think longterm we’ll have to cut funding for political parties from outside sources or even entirely. This has turned into a propaganda money arms race and lobbying money arms race and will continue to undermine our democracies imo.
Each party gets an identical fixed sum from the state and then then they have to win by convincing, not brute force marketing and manipulation. Or so goes my wishful thinking.
State party funding is actually a thing in some countries like Germany, Sweden or Australia. In Germany, each party with a significant result in any election (regional or local) starts receiving it, and it becomes more for better election results.
I don’t see the problem with small supporter donations, and that is how many parties stay afloat. What I personally find problematic are big donations from single individuals or organizations, these should be regulated in some way. Again using Germany as an example, they at least have to be declared publicly, though through some trickery, this doesn’t always work. There’s more potential for action here.
Having state funding as a basis is fantastic and I like that Germany has this as do many other countries. But if the corporate and other donations get top big there will always be a conflict of interest. If you do certain things you’ll get more funding from certain groups. Those who get more funding will have more money to campaign for the election. In gaming this would be called pay to win I guess.
The other issue is that in Germany groups get around donation limits and having to disclose donation sources for larger sum donations by splitting them into smaller chunks and sending them through multiple organisations. That’s why I’d like parties having to disclose every single donation. That’d at least show where their biases might lie.
Organic Law 8/2007 about funding of political parties (Spain):
Article 5. Limits on private donations.
a) Anonymous, finalist or revocable donations.
b) Donations from the same person exceeding 50,000 euros annually.
c) Donations from legal persons and entities without legal personality.
Donations in kind of real estate are exempt from the limit provided for in letter b), provided that the requirements established in article 4.2, letter e) are met.
Article 7. Contributions from foreign people.
Political parties may receive non-final donations from foreign individuals, with the limits, requirements and conditions established in this law for private contributions, and provided that the requirements of current regulations on exchange control and capital movement are also met.
Parties may not accept any form of financing from foreign governments and organizations, entities or public companies or from companies directly or indirectly related to them.
Doesn’t matter in Australia as we allow
briberycorporate political donations; Individual donations are capped at a few thousand, so those pesky citizens can’t have too much of a say at least.