Electoral Spending and Funding Transparency

The Absent Ordinance

"Intervention"
By Dr. Walaa Gad ElKareem1
Electoral Spending and FundingTransparency Justifications
Utilizing money in the electoral process is directly linked to three key issues: i)
electoral activities funding sources; ii) electoral spending ceiling and limit; and iii)
electoral spending items.
On the level of i) electoral activities funding sources, the relation between the
elected incumbent and their campaign's funding sources shall affect their
orientations, decisions and political performance in general, therefore, funding
sources has the answer to questions such as: who would the MPs line with? Which
group of interest would they express? And how far would they reflect the social
and political bloc they represent.
As for ii) electoral spending ceiling and limit, this reflects the binding of the ruling
regulatory frameworks to the essence and spirit of the "equal opportunities"
principle, where funding capacities and the ability to mobilize financial resources
for the potential and actual candidates vary in any political system, thus, we face
the following questions: how far would the political system guarantee the lack of
effect of the citizens candidacy opportunities and their access to elected public
councils and positions?
1 PHD in Social Evaluation for Development Projects, General Director at Partners For
Transparency

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And for iii) electoral spending items, they carry with them the answer to the
fundamental question, did the candidate use money to influence voters free well
directly?
All these issues and questions linked to them calls for the necessity to have
efficient mechanisms for the transparency of electoral spending and funding,
when speaking about transparency, we mean specific particular procedural
definition including providing information, and working in an open way allowing
stakeholders to have the necessary information relative to electoral funding and
spending for candidates.
The Law and the Gab of Electoral Spending and Funding Transparency
Guarantees
The Law on the Exercise of Political Rights issued by Decision Number 45 of 2014
sets the regulatory frameworks for electoral campaigns funding and the ceiling
and items for electoral spending for the candidates for the coming parliamentary
membership candidates. According to Article No. 25 of the Law, the ceiling for
electoral spending is estimated by 500,000 EGP for individual seats candidates in
the first round, and 200,000 EGP for the second round, while the two ceilings are
doubled for each 15 candidates gathered in one list.
The Law gives the candidate the right to receive cash and in-kind donations from
Egyptian citizens and political parties, it obligates the candidate to open a bank
account in one of the banks or post offices, when it prohibits spending on the
electoral campaign outside this bank account, and for the first time, the Law
obliges the candidate to have regular registers according to the Egyptian
accounting standards to have records for funding sources and electoral
campaign's expenditures.
Despite the fact that those articles are new and positive compared to the
regulating laws for parliamentary elections before and after January 2011
revolution, the law did not include any articles guaranteeing transparency in the
candidates' funding electoral campaigns and spending in an efficient and definite
way, the most important aspects of this legislative deficiencies are:
1. Despite that law states in Article No. 36 that the High Elections Commission
is entitled to form observation committees from independent experts, to
monitor and observe the standards stipulated by the constitution, the law or
the High Elections Commission regarding electoral campaigns (including
funding and spending), practically, it is difficult for those committees to
estimate the financial costs for electoral campaigns, they also do not have
mechanisms to reveal unannounced and secret spending for candidates,
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when these committees work is often limited to the period dedicate for
electoral campaigning only. Their work does not include the period before
this legal period which witness invisible intensive spending;
2. The poor legal penalties decided for the violation of transparency rules in
electoral spending, according to article No. 68 of the Decision issued to
organize the exercise of political rights No. 45 of 2014, "those whom spent
unregistered amounts of money in the bank account specified by the High
Elections Commission on electoral campaigns" shall be punished by a fine of
not less than ten thousand pounds, the fine shall not exceed one hundred
thousand pounds. Thus, the candidates could spend times the amount
registered in the official bank account for the campaign and would be
punished by a small financial fine that would not prevent him from reaching
the parliament.
3. The legal articles include procedures allowing the High Elections
Commission to follow-up the candidates sources of funding, and spending
ceiling and items, still, they do not include procedures to fulfill the voters
and observers right to have access to the relative information, it is not
legally binding that the candidate disclose his campaigns sources and
amounts of funding, and spending ceiling and items to his constituency and
other stallholders.
4. Neither the law, nor the recognized regulating procedures during the
elections, include specific mechanisms guaranteeing civil society
organizations participation in monitoring the electoral funding and spending
for candidates.
Electoral funding and spendingideas to achieve the absent
transparency
It is not expected that the Egyptian electoral system would shift from the "lack of
transparency" stage to the "absolute transparency" stage over a night. In regards
with the electoral spending funding sources, ceiling and items, social and cultural
contexts, electoral heritage, and political climate are aspects affecting this matter
in one way or the other. Out of believing in gradual progress towards this goal, the
intervention presents recommendations and ideas proposals that could be
reviewed via discussions- that might contribute to increasing funding and
electoral spending transparency rates:
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Obligating the candidates to publish detailed information for their electoral

campaigns funding sources in local media, or enabling them to publish them
via the Parliamentary Elections Commission's website before the polling
dates;

Binding the candidates (winners and losers) to publish an authorized final

report including all the required supporting documents in the local media, or
enabling them to publish it via the Parliamentary Elections Commission's
website after the completion of the electoral process;
Extending the mandate of the Central Auditing Organization to include the
right to oversight the funding sources and spending items for the
parliamentary membership candidates;
Extending the role of local CSOs in monitoring electoral spending and
funding for candidates, with the necessity to enabling them to have access
to the required information available at either the candidates' campaigns or
the official authorities;
Raising citizens awareness of the regulating legal procedures for electoral
funding and spending, along with encouraging them to "hold their
candidates accountable" as one of the voters rights;
Tightening of legal sanctions relative to non-disclosure of either funds
sources or spending items, or violating the stated facts in the candidate's
official reports, records and accounts to reach either delisting of the
candidates records or omission of membership in case the candidate won
the elections before the disclosure of the electoral crime.

Other than those recommendations, and in parallel with them, the necessity to
speed up the formation of the Permanent National Entity for Elections stays, as
the entity providing more integrity and transparency for the elections system in
Egypt, and overcoming the issues and gabs resulting from the "seasonal"
elections work.

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