News | Sunday, 10 May 2009

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MEP campaign spending shoots way above €1,400 limit

Matthew Vella
Candidates for the MEP elections are still bound by a €1,400 limit on their campaign spending at law, and yet it is all the more evident that their budgets have clearly exploded.
Billboards, mailshots, full-page newspaper ads, parties and receptions, and dedicated offices are the norm for the candidates with the biggest budgets this year.
But the level of spending on their full-blown national campaigns this year seems to make a mockery of what is, in all effects, a risible spending limit.
Malta is one of few European democracies lacking any legislation regulating party financing, except for a €1,400 (Lm600) limit on campaign expenses by individual candidates, and not more than €7,000 for the same party candidates in one district.
That means that for the European Parliament elections, Labour can spend up to €84,000 and the Nationalist party up to €70,000.
However, the constant barrage of paid advertisements, mailshots, souvenirs, and billboards, not to mention parties and concerts hosted by the candidates, will obviously run into thousands of euros for each individual campaign.
But it’s the ‘friends’ of the candidates who bankroll the campaigns – the group of anonymous supporters which act as the loophole to plunder voters’ minds with ads and billboards. Candidates are able to get away with spending way above what the law intends.
The General Elections Act was enacted in 1991 to replace the 1939 Ordinance, but it did not repeal the sections in the pre-war ordinance that regulated the expenditure of candidates and political parties during elections.
The law covers expenditure made by candidates and political parties “before, during or after an election” and the words are construed to mean from the day the election is called. Therefore, all material distributed by prospective candidates including the party billboards erected just over two weeks ago, must not be covered by that law.
As with the general elections, MEP candidates must present a sworn return of their electoral expenses to the Electoral Commission, declaring all monies received from donors or associations in respect of their electoral expenses.
They must also list their personal expenses, salaries paid to their agents and other employees, and their travelling expenses, printing, advertising, communications expenses, and rent.
By law, all donations must be made directly to the candidate or their agent, who in turn must vouch all expenses for by a bill stating the particulars and by a receipt.
Candidates are entitled to pay up to a risible €28 in “personal expenses” – which include “reasonable travelling expenses” and “expenses of his living at hotels or elsewhere for the purposes of the election” but any further expenses must be paid by their electoral agent.

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