For the first time in the Republic of Moldova, a political party was declared unconstitutional last year, but this fact did not stop this team from continuing its activity. At the same time, last year was marked by an activation of investigative bodies’ efforts to verify the financing of political parties, but also of electoral campaigns. Now the finality of these files matters. The findings belong to experts of the Promo-LEX Association, who on Thursday presented the Report on the financing of political parties in the Republic of Moldova in 2023. The authors of the report estimated unreported expenses of over 20 million lei, and 82 percent of these were for the former Shor Party and its satellites, IPN reports.
Nicolae Panfil, Promo-LEX program director, said that the Association has been producing this report since 2016, trying to bring more transparency in the field of political party financing. “Monitoring the financing of parties since 2016, we finally saw in 2023 a fairly sustained effort to strengthen the Central Election Commission’s capacities to control and supervise political financing in particular. For the first time in the Republic of Moldova, in 2023, a political party was declared unconstitutional. In fact, the declaration of the Shor Party unconstitutional did not stop this team from political promotion and political activities that it is still carrying out today,” stated Nicolae Panfil.
A welcome aspect for 2023 is the activation of investigative bodies’ efforts to check the financing of political parties, but also of electoral campaigns. “For the first time, we have seen political parties investigated, questioned for facts related to the falsification of reports, failure to declare expenses. I think this is a good fact, but we want these investigative activities to be, on the one hand, carried out comprehensively, to look solid in front of the court for this to pronounce, and on the other hand, to last as short as possible. But, so far, we do not yet have criminal cases on illegal financing activities concluded,” said Nicolae Panfil.
Mariana Focșa, financial analyst at Promo-LEX, said that incomes for 2023 were declared by 34 political parties. 22 parties that submitted reports declared zero expenses. Most of the incomes were declared by the Party of Action and Solidarity – over 22 million lei, the Party of Socialists – 10 million lei, and the European Social Democratic Party – 4.8 million lei.
Depending on the source of income declared by parties, 84% are allowances from the state budget, 5% – donations from individuals, 4% – donations from legal entities, 4% – party membership fees, and 3% – financial resources accumulated from economic activities. 87% of the income was declared by 6 parties and only 13% of the income was declared by the other 28 parties that reported income collection in 2023.
“We note with concern that the revenues of political parties are increasingly dependent on allocations from the state budget. In the last eight years, their dependence on resources from the state budget has increased greatly. In consolidated democracies, the ratio is 65% from the state budget and 35% from private sources. Therefore, we find that the Republic of Moldova has far exceeded that average existing at EU level since, in 2023, we had an 84% dependence on the state budget. International organizations promote the principle of party financing according to a balance between public and private funding. If the parties depend a lot on the state budget, then the link between the party and the voter can disappear. There is the idea that the dependence of parties on the state budget could lead to the transformation of parties into agents of the state and the tendency for them to represent the state in front of the citizens and not the other way around – to represent the citizens in front of the state,” noted Mariana Focșa.
At the same time, based on the monitored activities, Promo-LEX experts estimated unreported expenses of over 20 million lei, and most of them – about 15 million lei - were estimated for the former Shor Party and the current team of Ilan Shor. The PSRM follows with 2 million lei undeclared, the Revival Party – 1.2 million lei and the Chance Party – 706,000 lei. Respectively, 82% of the total expenses estimated as unreported were for the former Shor Party and its satellites – Revival and Chance. Most of the expenses went on the organization of political promotion events, press and promotional materials, rental for head offices, etc.
