Earl Moxam, Senior Gleaner WriterIF ALL goes well with ongoing discussions between the governing People's National Party (PNP) and the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), Jamaica could soon establish a regime under which the state would provide some funding for the political parties, including the financing of campaign activities.
Ambassador Anthony Hylton, chairman of the PNP's Policy Commission, came away from a recent fact-finding mission to Germany (sponsored by the Freidrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation) full of enthusiasm for elements of that country's campaign financing law and vowing to pursue similar initiatives here in Jamaica.
One factor which he argues must be firmly established in any such regime, is a strong regulatory framework within which the political parties would operate.
"The regulation of political parties is impatient of debate," he asserted in an interview with The Sunday Gleaner. That, he said, was evident in recent confirmation of risks to the Jamaican state and the political system. "Most recently, the Minister of National Security and the Commissioner of Police have spoken about the clear and present danger posed to the democratic process and civil institutions by drug money or the prospect of illicit money in the system. We have had, at least on one occasion, a complaint by one of the parties about how decisions were made in the party and the prospect of illicit money. Separate and apart from that is the undue influence of legitimate commercial money undermining the democratic process as well."
ROLE IN DECISION-MAKING PROCESS
One way of dealing with the problem, Hylton argues, is to make the political parties more accountable and giving them "a critical role in the decision-making process in our basic document the constitution". The German system, he pointed out, "which is a parliamentary democracy, as it is with us, has recognised from its earliest conception, that political parties have a critical role - indeed, a key role - to play in the opinion-forming and decision-making process in the country and have so provided for it".
In Germany, under the Law on Political Parties, the state provides funding for any party which won at least 0.5 per cent of the valid votes cast at the most recent European or Bundestag (national parliament) elections, or if they secured at least one per cent of the votes cast at one of the most recent local/regional elections. Qualified parties receive 0.85 euro for each valid vote won at the most recent election, up to a total of four million votes, and 0.70 euro for each additional vote.
The amount of money available from the state is not inexhaustible however, and in 2002 the ceiling on such provisions from the government for party financing was set at 133 million euros.
Germany learnt early the lesson that large private donors can unduly influence the course of a country. Such was the case with the Nazi party, which, in the 1920s and 1930s, was financed by huge donations from German heavy industry. According to Transparency International, Germany, these donations were not made in a transparent manner and placed other competing parties at a disadvantage. History records that the Nazis, under Adolf Hitler, took Germany and the world into one of the most shameful chapters of human existence.
The Political Parties Financing Act was passed in the 1970s. This was done "because of a recognised need for transparency in how parties were financed", according to Lothar Mark, Member of Parliament for the governing Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the Bundestag.
Prior to that, there were what Mark described as "some dark channels through which parties were financed", and about which, he said, the public was unaware.
The responsibility for policing the party financing regime on behalf of the state falls to the president of the Bundestag (equivalent to the Speaker of the Jamaican Parliament).
Dr. Wolfgang Zeh, director of the Bundestag, readily acknowledges the challenge faced by the President, who belongs to one party, being responsible for allocating funds to all parties. He pointed out, during a recent visit by the Jamaican delegation, however, that such disbursements were along prescribed lines, according to law, and that the funds were actually administered by designated staff of the Bundestag.
CONSENSUS NEEDED
Diana Rodriques Transparency International's programme manager for the Global Programme on Corruption in Politics, believes one of the weaknesses in the German model is the lack of a strong access to information law. "That's something that applies as well to political funding and the information that's available about party financing," she said.
Another problem relating to the German system, according to Rodriques, is the lack of resources to enforce the legislation. "Political parties here are protected constitutionally from scrutiny from the government because they are considered to be independent organisations. One way to get around that is the use of independent auditors to scrutinise party accounts," she suggests.
For some improvements on the German model, Diana Rodriques points approvingly to the British alternative, introduced recently. It was introduced, she said, with an electoral commission with the authority to enforce that law. "That's an important point that we very much want to emphasise, that when these laws are designed, the capacity to enforce them has to be contemplated and placed in the laws themselves. So, in the British model, the electoral commission has been very successful in disseminating the contents of the law and in enforcing it."
It is a lesson that is not lost on Dorothy Pine McLarty, an independent member of Jamaica's Electoral Advisory Committee (EAC) - soon to be made a permanent electoral commission.
"The first priority must be to get consensus between the Government and the Opposition. As far as I know, it has been considered by them and I think we need to build on that. I am satisfied that the model can be sufficiently amended - this model that we have observed here in Germany and others in the world - to satisfy the Jamaican situation and to help us correct some of the problems that exist," she told The Sunday Gleaner.
Dr. Christopher Tufton, JLP Senator and President of the party's affiliate Generation 2000 (G2K), believes state involvement in the funding of some political activities, in the future, is inevitable. "I think it is a direction we are going to look at in moving into the future. There are some challenges in that it is likely to meet with some objections from the public re lack of credibility in the state which is regarded as wasteful. The credibility of the state, is questioned, and this will lead to questions about using taxes for political activities," he said.
This lack of trust in the political parties is one that is growing throughout the Americas, according to Silke Pfeiffer, Transparency International's regional director for the Americas. "We are really talking about the quality of democracy and the factor that most affects the quality of democracy is the credibility of the political parties, and perceptions of corruption lies at the root of concerns about party credibility and falling numbers of supporters," she told The Sunday Gleaner.
GROWING INFLUENCE OF DRUG MONEY
Professor Trevor Munroe of the University of the West Indies argues that this perception of corruption among political parties in the region is being fed by the growing influence of drug money in the Americas. "The United Nations has told us that somewhere in the region of US$50 billion is laundered across the Caribbean. Now that's far in excess of the GDP of all the CARICOM states added together, and therefore, the kind of drug money passing through is enough to corrupt those individual politicians who are corruptible, customs who are corruptible, police officers, judges, prosecutors. There is a clear and present danger that our political system and our state can be captured by these elements. And therefore, a major motivation to introduce this overall package of reform has got to be to reduce and ultimately eliminate the likelihood that our democracy, which we cherish so dearly, the people's right to vote and the people's vote is not undermined by commercial money behind the scenes," he said.
In acknowledging the existence of such strong public perceptions of corruption in the parties, Munroe, a PNP Senator, conceded that public financing of political parties in Jamaica, by itself, could not be justified. "It has got to be part of a broad and deep package of reform measures to clean up political parties and to make our democracy more effective," he said.
TIMELY IMPLEMENTATION
Whatever the concerns, it was time, according Tony Hylton, for all stakeholders to consider the various models, including the German approach, with a view to timely implementation.
"What is critical, however, is that whoever administers the system has to be independent and properly resourced so that they can undertake the investigations. And they have to be given the authority and themselves be made accountable to the process," he concluded.
Dorothy Pine McLarty, of the EAC, while acknowledging the need for reform, called for public involvement in the process. "We need to share it with them; we need to inform them, and ultimately, we must impose the necessary or appropriate sanctions or regulations. But I think the time has come for us to deal with this aspect of legal reform," she said.
Judith Wedderburn, Director, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Jamaica and the Eastern Caribbean, is warning that "having political parties that don't have secure funding that's accessed in a transparent and regulated way can definitely lead to a weakening of the political system, a weakening of the political process, which, itself, is the centre of social democracy".
It was therefore important, she said, to support moves towards reform "and to do it in a way that involves all the stakeholders because it is not a party issue, it is a national issue".
