NGO Tabulates Cost of 2009 Parliamentary Elections

The Daily Star reports:

An estimated $35 million was spent on election-related activities by different political parties in the run-up to the 2009 parliamentary election, a new report released this week by The Lebanese Transparency Association (LTA) found.

A further $32 million was spent on political advertising and media in the period from August 2008 and July 2009, the LTA report tackling issues of electoral corruption revealed.

The findings come at the end of a year-long Campaign Finance Monitoring Project, the first initiative to monitor campaign spending in the Middle East. It focused on the key election spending abuses, namely the misappropriation of public funds, electoral advertising, vote buying and campaign spending.

“We are not here to exclude or get any candidates banned,” LTA Project Coordinator, Natacha Sarkis told The Daily Star. “We are just trying to highlight the desperate need for reform. All the money that is being diverted for things like posters could be spent on much-needed development projects.”

The report was compiled by LTA-trained volunteers who assembled information on spending by monitoring Lebanon’s major media outlets and conducting interviews and on-the-ground research.

The report was produced in cooperation with the UK and Canadian embassies, the International Foundation for Electoral Reform and human-rights NGO Open Society.

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A further 3,553 election-related activities, such as festivals and rallies, also took place across all 23 districts as well as oversees, at an estimated cost of just under $10,000 each. Tripoli, where the election was hotly contested, had the highest number of election-related activities.

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According to the report, vote buying is the “overriding” concern in election campaigns. It consists of direct or indirect buying, including the provision of services such as infrastructure renovation, which in some pre-election instances reached $50 million for a single project.

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Although still in its infancy, the 2009 election did see the official adoption of several long-advocated anti-corruption and democratic reforms. These included a limit on spending which was fixed at a flat amount equivalent to LL150 billion and a further LL4,000 for each voter. While hopes remain high about the future impact of these restrictions, they only came into effect in April 2009, a mere two months before the election.

Existing restrictions, like the misuse of public funds or property for electioneering purposes, were also largely ignored and the report noted that almost all ministers and returning candidates used their position to campaign for re-election.

It found that on average campaigning ministers stepped up their official activities by around 50 percent, with 71 percent of ministerial activities being dedicated to electioneering.

“It is against the law to use public funds and utilities [such as schools and houses of worship] to help your campaign,” Omar Kabboul, LTA’s communication director said. “They are using national resources so they do not have to use their own money to fund their campaigns.”

Other positive electoral reforms, including the formation of a commission to oversee election campaigns and the right of NGOs to monitor elections, were enacted in January, however, and provided positive results, the report concluded.

LTA is at present monitoring the ongoing municipal polls and expects to produce a similar report on municipal spending before the summer.