The Carter Center released the final report of its International Election Observation Mission for the December 2023 general elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Wednesday. The report highlights the absence of a robust framework for campaign financing, creating significant gaps for illicit financial flows, corruption, and undue influence on the electoral process.
Regulations to ensure oversight and transparency of political party and campaign funding are essential for democratic elections, the Carter Center says. In the DRC, these regulations are largely inadequate and poorly enforced. Although the constitution allows political parties to receive public funds to finance their election campaigns, a law introduced in 2008 to implement this right remains unenforced.
The current legal framework does not provide for any regulations to ensure transparency, disclosure and control of the financing of political parties and electoral campaigns, the report notes. There are no rules on permissible income or expenditure, no limits on contributions or expenditure, and no regulations on the sources of funding. This lack of regulation allows illicit financial flows and fosters corruption.
Carter Center teams found that, with the exception of the main presidential candidates, other candidates faced funding constraints that limited their campaign activities. In the absence of public funds, political parties and groups were able to provide only very limited financial support to their candidates across the country.
This situation has particularly affected female candidates, who generally have less access to private funding than their male counterparts, the Carter Center said. The Public Financing Act includes parity in candidate lists as a criterion for eligibility for public funding. Its implementation would not only have exempted parties and groups that meet this parity from registration fees, but would also have made them eligible for public funding.
The Carter Center report highlights the urgent need to reform the legal framework for electoral financing in the DRC to ensure more transparent and fair elections, reduce the risks of corruption and undue influence, and allow for better representation of women in the electoral process.
/actualité.cd
2024-07-27 11:56:28
#DRC #Lack #regulation #electoral #financing #DRC #promotes #corruption #illicit #financial #flows #Report