Translated material
Box office struggle
Maintaining regional branches is the most expensive for parties
On Thursday, the Russian Central Election Commission published consolidated financial reports of political parties for 2006. The richest party, according to its own reports, as last year, was United Russia, in second place was the second party in power, A Just Russia. Now the CEC, with the help of tax services, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and, if necessary, the FSB, will verify the conformity of the presented data with reality.No later than April 1, parties were required to submit a consolidated financial report on the funds they spent on organizational party work, congresses, conferences, participation in elections, and charitable activities for 2006, taking into account funds from regional branches. Consolidated financial statements, in particular, in accordance with the Law “On Political Parties” also contain information about legal entities and individuals who made donations to political parties, the total amount of which (donations) in the reporting year for a legal entity does not exceed 400 thousand rubles, for individual - 20 thousand rubles. The CEC has the right not to disclose the list of legal entities and individuals, especially since in Russia, unlike the global situation, voters are not interested in the sources of funding for parties.
Of the 35 political parties registered at the beginning of 2007, 24 submitted these reports. In total, 2.3 billion rubles were deposited in the accounts of political parties in 2006, and they spent about 2.1 billion rubles during the reporting year.
The most funds were attracted by United Russia - about 1.5 billion rubles, A Just Russia - about 166 million rubles, Patriots of Russia - about 158 million rubles, the Liberal Democratic and Communist parties - 150 million rubles each, Yabloko - more than 43 million rubles, as well as the Union of Right Forces - about 40 million rubles.
The main item of party expenses is the maintenance of regional branches, and not, for example, the holding of numerous regional elections. The parties spent about 1 billion rubles on maintaining regional infrastructure.
Legal entities donated 997 million rubles to the United Russia party, with the largest share being the Peresvet Joint-Stock Commercial Bank. Among the donors to the party in power there are numerous regional public “funds for supporting United Russia.” Citizens supported the party in power with 6.6 million rubles. Among them, the Altai senator Ralif Safin stands out with the largest amount.
At the same time, 6.3 million rubles. (that is, even less than private donations from citizens) United Russia spent on charitable activities.
Other parties have much fewer donors - legal entities. Among the donors to the third party in terms of income, “Patriots of Russia,” there are organizations named LLC “People’s Patriotic Union of Russia” and the national fund of patriotic forces “Patriot.”
The Communist Party of Russia received 31 million rubles from donors, and among the main voluntary sponsors of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is OJSC Detsky Mir. 13 million rub. Citizens donated to the communists, who always emphasize that the party lives on party contributions. The first secretary of the Moscow city committee, Vladimir Ulas, gave 500 thousand rubles to his native party last year, Nobel laureate Zhores Alferov - 90 thousand.
The second party in power, A Just Russia, received 136 million rubles from legal donors, and only 3 million from citizens. At the same time, the party, which very actively participated in the regional elections on October 8, 2006, according to its report, spent a little on preparing the elections more than a million rubles. By the way, last year the three parties that formed the basis of A Just Russia received much more money in total.
In total, the parties spent 156 million rubles to finance their main statutory activity - participation in elections and referendums in 2006.
This time the LDPR received only 5.5 thousand rubles from entrepreneurial activities, despite the fact that United Russia received 56 thousand. Apparently, the liberal democrats are not as successful as before in trading the Zhirinovsky brand - with Vodka, tea, perfume, and shaving cream are sold under this name in Russia. And recently the party released Zhirik ice cream. By the way, according to experts, not all parties are recognized as having entrepreneurial activity.
As for the Democrats, the income of the Yabloko party over the past year increased slightly - by 10 million rubles, while that of the Union of Right Forces even fell slightly - by 5 million.