More than EUR 1 million in election funds collected from holding seminars and selling paintings

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Prior to the last Parliamentary election in March 2007, a total of more than EUR 1 million in election funds were collected from holding seminars and selling paintings and other artworks.
      The largest sums were earned by the candidates of the National Coalition Party with EUR 438,100, while the Centre Party received EUR 284,000, and the Social Democatic Party EUR 192,000.
      The seminar receipts of the Swedish People’s Party were EUR 81,650, and those of the Green League EUR 8,200.
      Among those who financed their election campaigns mostly by seminar funds, Jyri Häkämies (Nat. Coalition) was the only one who says that he sold tickets in bulk.
      None of the others say they sold tickets to anybody for more than EUR 1,700. According to the Ministry of Justice, all campaign contributions worth more than EUR 1,700 must be made public.
     
”At present, campaign funding follows the principles of the originally broad law”, says Ville Pitkänen, a researcher at the Centre for Parliamentary Studies, at the University of Turku.
      ”Those transactions are rather impossible to trace, and the limit of EUR 1,700 is easily exceeded”, Pitkänen adds.
     
In most cases, contributions relating to seminars can be collected in two ways.
      Either a candidate tours the capital and his or her own constituency, holding several seminars, or one can hold one large seminar in the Greater Helsinki area.
     
Tickets are sold mostly to companies, while prominent figures are invited to make speeches at the seminar. In such cases the companies can regard the seminar fees as staff training costs which are tax-deductible.
      For example Tanja Karpela (Centre) gathered almost her entire campaign funding from one seminar which was arranged by a local association in Espoo. The profit from that seminar was EUR 44,300. A total of EUR 16,000 was collected for Centre Party Chairman Matti Vanhanen from the same seminar, which was attended by more than 40 guests, of whom some 30 represented various enterprises. Karpela and Vanhanen were the main performers at the seminar, and a ticket for the event cost EUR 1,200.
      The National Coalition Party in Helsinki gave its candidates an opportunity to sell tickets for an economics seminar. For every ticket the candidate managed to sell he or she was entitled to a provision of EUR 500.
      In addition to the MPs of the Centre Party and the National Coalition Party, the Social Democratic Party also financed its election campaign by arranging seminars.
     
The highest ticket receipts were gathered from the economics seminar in November 2006, organised by a local SDP association in Helsinki’s Paasitorni, originally built to serve as a people’s community hall.
      Social Democratic Party Chairman Eero Heinäluoma collected well over EUR 53,000, while Party Secretary Maarit Feldt-Ranta received EUR 25,000.
     
The entrance fee for the seminar was EUR 900, covering the speeches by the candidates themselves, while Sauli Niinistö, the then Vice-President of the European Investment Bank, Anne Brunila, the President of the Finnish Forest Industries Federation, and Anders Blom, the CEO of the Finnish Family Firms Association were also among guest speakers.
      Eero Heinäluoma points out that he did not get the entire sum himself, but had to pay all costs related to the seminar as well as some contributions to two other candidates.
      However, the Ministry of Justice has another interpretation. In the Ministry’s view, all individual donations should be disclosed in gross value, and no campaign expenditures should be deducted.
     
The whole vexed question of campaign financing has become a hot-button issue in recent weeks, as the linked articles will indicate.
      Numerous MPs and some prominent ministers have been obliged to modify their reports on campaign contributions, and there have been questions asked about possible quid pro quos connected with support.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Party leaders agree on EUR 3,000 limit for individual political contributions in municipal elections (28.5.2008)
  COMMENTARY: Money matters (27.5.2008)
  Brax wants monitoring of election campaign funding away from Ministry of Justice (19.5.2008)
  Prime Minister regards election campaign funding mess as serious (19.5.2008)
  Election financiers (18.5.2008)
  Centre Party MP´s comments spark campaign finance row (15.5.2008)

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