An election watchdog has urged government to reform the current Political Parties (Finance) Act.
The hybrid model ensures equitability on non-monetary financing and proportional direct public financing of eligible political parties.In its research paper titled Political Party Finance-Which way for Zimbabwe, the election monitoring body says all political parties in Zimbabwe should have equal access to both monetary and non-monetary state resources.
“The state resources can be in the form of public media and infrastructure like public halls, school halls. This will make sure that not only governing parties will benefit over other political parties on access to state resources,” reads part of the paper.
The Political Parties Act states that all political parties should have access to money and other resources provided, in between or during the electoral period.
In Zimbabwe, political parties receive public funding, regulated by the Political Parties Finance Act of 2001. According to the Act every political party is entitled in each Parliamentary year to receive from the State the sums that are payable to it in terms of the Act. The Act prohibits foreign funding.
By law, any political party that garners at least 5% of the vote in the previous election is eligible to receive public funding.
However, the election watch dog, insisted on the setting up of an independent regulatory body not the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs currently administering the Act, “which nourishes suspicions of bias since the ministry is headed by an interested party.”
“The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) should play a central role in regulating political party finances based on their constitutional obligation to be independent arbiters of electoral processes and associated players.
“There is need to effectively monitor the inflow of funding to political parties so as to eliminate foreign funding and also to minimize abuse of funds meant for other political parties by the incumbents,” the paper explores.
According to the paper political parties should declare their sources of funding as this will go a long way in mitigating the effects of corruption and receiving illicit and terrorism moneys.
“Political parties that have access to state funding should open up their audited accounts, allowing public accessibility because part of their operations are funded by the tax payers,” reads part of the paper.
ERC also bemoans the misuse of state resources for political gain by incumbent political parties is a common problem in Africa.
“Ruling parties tend to use state resources such as government vehicles, government facilities, public media and civil servants for their campaign activities because the separation between the state and political party resources is still blurred.”
