The dark shadow

It seems that the law on party financing will limit itself to obliging political parties to declare the source of donations over and above a certain amount. Much depends on the amount which shall be established.

The absence of any rules on this vital aspect of our democracy has already attracted the scrutiny of the Council of Europe's Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) of which Malta is a member.

Previous attempts in the mid 1990s to introduce a similar law failed because the PN wanted a higher ceiling for declaring the source of donations than the other parties. In reality the higher this amount, the less effective the law will be to address what could be the root of many of this country's problems.

So why not require parties to declare the source of every donation over say €200? Obviously one should also seek to avoid the possibility of loopholes like a series of small donations made by the same company, family or person made over a period of time to circumvent the legal limits. One solution could be to declare the source of every donation and thus do away with any possible loophole.

Any rules on financing should also include provisions on the independent auditing of party accounts. This is also cone of the recommendations made by GRECO. Political parties are not private entities and their finances have to be subjected to rigorous inspection.

According to media reports the new law will actually increase the allowed spending by MPs. Some argue that the current limit is not realistic and since many disregard it by taking a false oath, it should be simply done away with.

Personally I do not subscribe to this point of view. Campaign spending by individual candidates  should be discouraged rather than encouraged. And most campaigning does not cost money, it simply requires time, dedication and being Internet savvy. Home visits, meeting people in their everyday life and twitting do not cost money. Filling people’s bellies in receptions  does cost money but contributes little to the democratic debate. All it does is foster an unhealthy competition between district heavyweights, with the richest of them (or those with the best contacts in the business world) having a natural advantage over others.

Judging from reports absent from the law is any reference to no state funding of political parties. This means that parties will continue to rely on big business for their funding. This means that the country will continue paying for the even greater cost of the indebtedness of political parties towards big business.

Some would argue that people would not accept that at a time of economic crisis tax payers’ money is used to finance political parties. To this I answer that we have to accept that money spent in our democracy is well spent. Preventing corruption and removing that constant shadow on major government tendersm (like the Delimara one)  is worth the cost of a transparent state financed system of party  funding.  Investing in our democracy is not such a bad idea.

A system of state financing based on the German model where each party is paid a sum of money for each vote it wins in elections, would also create more of a level playing field not just between the two big parties but also with regards to smaller parties who lack the resources of the behemoths.