Campaign Finance - Regulation

Regulation

The concept of political finance can affect various parts of a society's institutions which support governmental and social success. Correct handling of political finance impacts a country's ability to effectively maintain free and fair elections, effective governance, democratic government and regulation of corruption. The United Nations convention against Corruption, recognizing this, encouraged its members to "enhance transparency in the funding of candidatures for elected public office and, when applicable, the funding of political parties." Throughout the world countries have identified the problems which improper use of political finance could entail. When conducting a study pursuing and understanding of what international civil society has determined integral to regulation of political finance, Magnus Öhman and Hani Zainulbhai identified several common understandings by these organizations:

1. Money is necessary for democratic politics, and political parties must have access to funds to play their part in the political process. Regulation must not curb healthy competition.
2. Money is never an unproblematic part of the political system, and regulation is desirable
3. The context and political culture must be taken into account when devising strategies for controlling money in politics
4. Effective regulation and disclosure can help to control adverse effects of the role of money in politics, but only if well conceived and implemented
5. Effective oversight depends on activities in interaction by several stakeholders (such as regulators, civil society and the media) and based on transparency.

Their study also affirmed the perspective laid down by the Council of Europe, when discussing the concept of effective regulation of campaign financing: " convinced that raising public awareness on the issues of prevention and fight against corruption in the field of funding of political parties is essential to the good functioning of democratic institutions."