Civil monitoring of the financing of the election campaigns 2008

CIVIL MONITORING OF THE FINANCING OF THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN FOR MEMBERS OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF BULGARIA AND OF THE CAMPAIGN FOR PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS IN BULGARIA (2008)

Since the beginning of July 2008 TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL-Bulgaria commenced independent monitoring regarding financing of the election campaign for parliamentary members and regarding the elections for Members of the European Parliament of the Republic of Bulgaria. The project was financed with the financial support of Bulgarian Fund.

The initiative is yet another step ahead in the efforts of TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL-Bulgaria to promote the transparency of political parties in financing of election campaigns.

The main idea of the project was to encourage integrity on financing of election campaigns and to increase the level of integrity within the democratic process.

The main concern of TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL-Bulgaria while monitoring of financing on these two campaigns was the increasing trend of vote purchase which inevitably corrupted the election. On the other hand, TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL-Bulgaria was convinced that preparation, discussion and implementation of legislative changes connected to the elections legislation were a subject of strong pressure from lobbyists and illegal interests related to practices of political corruption and aimed to facilitate the corrupt practices in the election processes.

Main goals of the initiative:

• Advocacy for civil and political intolerance concerning the issue of votes purchase by means of public attention focusing upon the significance of that phenomenon and the organization of civil society in observers’ campaign for impartial and fair election campaign;
• Increase of transparency in financing of election campaigns and of political activity through the promotion of comprehensive and deep legislative changes aimed at the current legislative drawbacks;
• Encouragement of a more effective civil and institutional control over the financing of political activity in Bulgaria through the implementation of an independent civil monitoring of raising funds for election campaigns, as well as of their spending.