Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB) has completed examination of declarations submitted by political parties in relation to the 9th Saeima elections. Year 2006 and 9th Saeima elections have been extremely significant in safeguarding legitimacy of political parties' financial activities.
On the one hand, parliamentarians have made a democratic choice and agreed on adoption of such a legal framework which foresees strict restrictions in political parties' financing and liability for violations of these provisions. On the other hand, KNAB is mandated to control whether activities of political parties are in compliance with law. The objective of restrictions stipulated in the Law on Financing Political Organisations (Parties) is to ensure equal conditions at the greatest degree possible for in realization of pre-election campaigning and in influencing the will of electors. The observance of law in the system of parliamentary democracy ensures legal reliance that all parties involved have equal possibilities and no preferential treatment is provided only for few while it is not available for others.
The examinations show that several political parties have not observed provisions of the law. Major violations are:
After having completed examination on observance of legal provisions during the elections in 2006 KNAB informs about detected violations and measures for prevention of these violations. From 19 political parties and their associations which took part in elections of Saeima in 2006:
- administrative charges by applying monetary penalty in total amount of LVL 12 650 were brought against 7 political parties for violation of political parties' financing provisions, including 5 political parties - also for not observing limitations of the pre-election expenditure amount;
- abovementioned 5 parties have exceeded limitations of pre-election campaigning expenditure in total amount of LVL 941 492,32;
- it was concluded that in declarations submitted by political parties no information was provided concerning pre-election campaigning expenses in total amount of LVL 1 130 170,49.
It was also observed that no incompliance with the respective requirements of law was in declarations of income and expenditures for elections period submitted by 8 political parties. Those political parties are "Māras Zeme" ("Māra's land"), political party "Visu Latvijai" ("Everything for Latvia"), political party "Mūsu zeme" ("Our Land"), political party "Tēvzemes savienība" ("Motherland Union"), political party "Nacionālā Spēka Savienība" ("National Power Union"), political party "Eiroskeptiķi" ("Eurosceptics"), political party "Jaunie Demokrāti" ("New Democrats") and Retiree Party and Senior Party.
Detected Violations in Financing of Political Parties >>>