How do you think political parties should be funded?
By the state, based on success at previous election
By individual members only, with a cap on donations
By whoever wishes to donate to a party, with no limits
0voters
How do you think political parties should be funded?
This is a topic of hot debate in the UK, with allegations that the government arranged knighthoods in exchange for loans from wealthy businessmen. There are all sorts of ways to fund political parties, corporate money, small donations, state sponsorship, trade unions etc.
What do you think is best?
I’m not entirely sure on the whole process for New Zealand, however, government funding comes for advertising and some election costs, then there is a leader’s fund which can’t be used for election campaigning, and finally there is a Parliamentary Services budget for MP’s offices and secretaries etc. All the rest comes from donations.
In election time, parties are allocated a budget cap. There was (and still is) some controversy over this, as most of the major parties were late in returning the books for checking. In addition, one MP went to court under allegations of overspending. A candidate is allowed to spend up to $20,000 in their electorate campaign. Any campaign material (billboards etc) must be in at least 11 electorates for it to be considered a party campaign material and not a candidate campaign material. The money for a candidate comes from private sources.
Another thing was the National Party (conservatives, standing for financial responsibility) overspend its advertising budget because it “forgot” to count Goods and Services Tax in its expenditure. The result spending $200,000+ more than it should have. It couldn’t pay back the broadcasters, becuase then it would be breaking the law by overspending. At the same, it couldn’t leave the businesses, and a state-owned (and taxpayer-funded) broadcaster short of the money they were owned. It’s solution?
It tried to change the law to give it a once-off exemption!
It was voted down in Parliament, and the matter is still unresolved, though the media may be working on a court case to recover the money.
I think that the current system in New Zealand is the best. A mix of government funding for certain areas to give more parties fairer chances, and private funding for personal campaigns, with caps.
I dont believe this is on the list.
No government funding for political parties but any private funding is ok. Also it is in public interest that politicans state explicity how they spent their campaign funds.
Perhaps there could be no restrictions on donations but that it would be transparent, ideally with the federal electoral commission of the respective nation taking out ads in widely-run newspapers listing the top donors and top companies donating (corporate donations themselves are illegal in most areas but its indicative of who a corporation supports by the contributions of their employees) to all major candidates in the race. This way there would be transparency and it would be in a place where people can read it.
In France, no private funding is allowed.
Candidates pay for their campaign fees and get refunded if they make more than 5%. I am not sure it is the best system but allowing private funding for political parties leads to over-lobbying. The war in Irak may have been avoided if private funding were forbidden in the US. Oil and military industries have a huge responsibility on what is happening there (Bush has been elected thanks to their funds).