During election campaigns

Special control and audit commissions under the Central Election Commission and regional election commissions must monitor the financial discipline of parties. And for citizens and firms that illegally help parties with money during elections, fines should be increased. Such amendments to the electoral legislation and the Code of Administrative Offenses (CAO) were introduced yesterday by the head of the Duma Committee on Constitutional Legislation, United Russia member Vladimir Pligin. Representatives of the opposition and experts consider this another initiative of the authorities aimed against a multi-party system on the eve of the State Duma elections.

Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin, Kommersant / buy photo

Vladimir Pligin introduced his new ideas yesterday in the form of amendments to the second reading of the presidential bill, which was already approved in the first reading on September 16.

Deputies supplemented the Code of Administrative Offenses with new articles that would provide for fines for “illegal financing of party activities not related to participation in elections.” New fines are provided both for parties (up to 20 thousand rubles) and for those who finance them - for legal entities (up to 30 thousand rubles) and for ordinary citizens (up to 2 thousand rubles). Money that the party used bypassing its bank account, as well as amounts that were officially received into party accounts from companies or citizens, but exceeded annual limits, are considered illegal. According to the law “On Political Parties,” a citizen has the right to donate no more than 4.33 million rubles to his favorite party during a calendar year, and a legal entity - 43.3 million rubles. In general, the party has the right to increase its treasury over the year by no more than 4.33 billion rubles. Anything received in excess of the limit must be returned to the sponsors by the party.

But Vladimir Pligin proposes to punish parties and their sponsors in a similar way for violating election financing rules. In this case, the fines should be ten times higher. In particular, the bar for legal entities, in his opinion, can be raised to 300 thousand rubles. and even up to 1 million rubles. Let us remind you that during the elections of State Duma deputies, the party’s election fund can have no more than 700 million rubles. A citizen has the right to help a party during elections in an amount of no more than 49 thousand rubles, and a legal entity - no more than 24.5 million rubles. The party is obliged to make all payments related to elections only from the money of the election fund. If it turns out that a party is using money not from the fund and the amount of “outside money” exceeds 5% of the maximum allowable, it will be removed from the elections.

To more effectively suppress violations, Vladimir Pligin proposes to create control and audit commissions under the Central Election Commission (CEC) and regional election commissions. Mr. Pligin promised to justify the importance of his amendments to Kommersant closer to the second reading of the draft, which deputies will hold in November. But, judging by the practice of the lower house of the last three convocations, the amendments will be approved. And then, for violating the rules of financing any (including election) activities of the party, the violating company and the party itself will be fined for illegally accepting money. If a citizen donates money to another citizen’s party, both will be fined along with the party that received the money.

“Then it is necessary to fine Sberbank, through which only donations can be transferred,” Boris Nadezhdin, head of the MIPT department, a former member of the leadership of the SPS party, which was dissolved in 2008, told Kommersant. The expert does not see any grounds for such a tightening, if only due to the fact that not a single Russian party is able to annually replenish its coffers by 4 billion rubles, and during elections not a single election fund is “even close” to its maximum. . “This is another trap that the authorities are putting into the law for “inconvenient” parties and candidates,” said Igor Lebedev, vice speaker of the State Duma from the LDPR. “This is a lever with which the authorities are stocking up to control elections in single-mandate constituencies, and at the same time in order to scare those who decide to finance the opposition,” State Duma deputy, Secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Central Committee Sergei Obukhov told Kommersant. “Such financial control will be the most convenient way to close parties: two or three fines a year - and you can raise the issue of liquidation in court,” says Yuri Korguniuk, an expert at the INDEM Foundation (Informatics for Democracy).

“We do not comment on bills while they are being discussed in the State Duma,” Stanislav Vavilov, a member of the Central Election Commission, who oversees party finances, told Kommersant. “When the law is adopted, we implement it.”

Victor Khamraev

Controllers and fines are added to parties