Government parties split on political financing

Working group submits proposals on Tuesday

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A task force on party and election campaign financing is proposing a ceiling on spending on election campaigns, both for parties and for individual candidates. Supporting the campaign spending ceiling are a majority of both the party representatives and experts on the committee.
      The government parties are split on the matter: whereas the National Coalition Party and the Swedish People’s Party oppose a ceiling, the Centre Party and the Greens are in favour of it.
      The committee tried to find a compromise on the matter on Monday, but remained split, before Tuesday’s scheduled vote on the proposals that have been submitted.
     
The lack of unanimity on the part of the working group is not expected to make much of a difference. The content of the proposed legislation is to be finalised in negotiations among the government parties.
      Minister of Justice Tuija Brax (Green) plans to bring the proposal before the government this year.
     
Parliamentary group chairs Pekka Ravi (Nat. Coalition Party) and Timo Kalli (Centre Party) expect the government and Parliament to face great difficulties with campaign finance legislation.
      Ravi said on Monday that Tarasti’s working group should have been granted more time for its work. “Unfortunately, the time ran out and the entire preparation was left thin”, Ravi said.
      He is certain that big questions about the election bill will first be left with the government, and then with Parliament.
      The Centre Party’s Kalli would have preferred to allow Tarasti’s group as little “room to manoeuvre” as possible.
     
“The danger is that there will be too much. The more room to manoeuvre is left with the government and Parliament, the more difficult the entire legislation will be.”
      He says that it would have been easy for the Centre Party and the Greens to agree on the broad principles, but that the National Coalition Party and the Swedish People’s Party were a problem.
      Lauri Tarasti, the chairman of the working group, asked that all parties submit written proposals for the size of the campaign limits.
      Helsingin Sanomat has learned that the proposed maximum for a political party’s election campaign in EU and local elections is to be about EUR 500,000. In elections for the national Parliament, it would be about EUR one million, and in the Presidential elections it would be between EUR 1 and 2 million.
     
For individual candidates in municipal elections, the spending limit would be EUR 10-20,000. In national Parliamentary elections, it would be EUR 50-80,000, in European Parliament elections it would be EUR 100-150,000, and in Presidential elections it would be EUR 500,000.
      The upper limit would only apply to advertising and marketing expenses. Election advertisements would have to include the name of whoever is paying for the ad.
      Maximum donations to political parties are to be decided on Tuesday.
      The working group agrees that a public registry should be set up on the Internet for party financing. It would contain information on all contributions that exceed a certain limit.
      A majority on the working group support a threshold of EUR 2,000 as appropriate, but the National Coalition Party and Swedish People’s Party felt that EUR 5,000 would be better.
     
The working group is not expected to endorse a proposal by Centre Party Secretary Jarmo Korhonen for a ban on the use of television advertising in election campaigns.
      The Swedish People’s Party is in favour of such a ban, but as at least the Greens oppose it, the government will split on this question as well.
     
Supervising the use of party subsidies is to remain with the Ministry of Justice, but monitoring other types of financing is to be moved to the National Audit Office of Finland.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Election funding causes rumblings in government (25.9.2009)
  Vanhanen sees no problem with foundations making campaign donations (22.9.2009)
  Vanhanen got campaign contributions from nonprofit housing foundation (21.9.2009)

Helsingin Sanomat