TIC: Citizens Don�t Expect Elections to be Contested Fairly

Transparency International Hrvatska

The Transparency International Croatia presented the results of its public opinion survey on financing of election campaigns. The survey was conducted by �Promocija Plus� Agency, on May 2-3, on a representative sample of 1,300 persons, under the auspices of the �Preventing Political Corruption� project.

According to the survey�s findings, only about one fifth (21.2%) of the citizens believe that political parties will be financed in line with provisions of the Law on Financing of Political Parties. On the other hand, almost two thirds (64.6%) expects that the Law will not be adhered to during the election campaign.

However, while making their decision who to vote for, most citizens will consider the sources of finances � 41.8% of them find this issue important. Slightly less, 40,1%, will decide regardless of the sources of finances, while 18.2 percent is not certain if it would be decisive.

In terms of restrictions for amounts of money that individual parties could spend campaigning, the polled citizens were very consistent � full 91.5% of them believes that such restrictions should be put in place. Only 5,6 percent finds that unnecessary, while 2,8 percent didn�t answer that question.

The low trust in adherence to the Law on Financing of Political Parties, which doesn�t actually regulate financing of election promotion and campaigns, shows that parties should invest additional effort to increase transparency of their financial operations.

A major move forward in the right direction would be to establish separate bank accounts for each campaign that would be terminated once the campaign is over; public disclosure of costs of promotion before the actual voting takes place; and publication of audited balance sheets of income and expenses after the ballot day.

TIC believes that public disclosure of financial reports prior to actual ballot day, providing the public with insight of sources of finances and collected funds, should significantly increase the trust of the citizens in the electoral process and the political system in general. (For presentation of results and findings of the survey, visit TIC web-site.