Pine-McLarty (left) and Tavares-Finson (right)

In the wake of the Trafigura issue, national attention has shifted significantly towards the principle and possible methods of political party campaign finance. This was the focus of a Gleaner Editors' Forum on Wednesday, October 11. Today, we present excerpts from the forum.

Dorothy Pine McLarty, Independent Member, EAC

She eported on the outcome of a conference organised by the Electoral Advisory Commission (EAC) in Ocho Rios in July. The conference included participants from several foreign jurisdictions as well as the local political parties and civic organisations.

"Out of that we came to a decision firstly in respect of campaign financing. There was consensus, and here I should mention that we are, as of now, receiving all the written confirmations that we were awaiting from the two major political parties, the NDM and CAFFE, so I gather from the EAC.

"On the question of campaign financing, Sections 53-61 of the Representation of the People Act, that section already deals with financing and it is proposed that we expand that.

In addition to expanding the provisions dealing with financing, we wanted to emphasise and enforce the provisions dealing with sanctions because those are already there, (but) they need to be enforced.

"The others are: to increase the limit of candidate's expenditure in keeping with inflation; increase fines for illegal practices, which is the same thing as enforcing the sanctions; improve the provisions for disclosure and transparency; revise Form 22 which is the major instrument for accounting for election expenditure; expand the period for accounting - this is for expenditure by candidates to take in from the start-up of the campaigning; report expenditure by affiliated organisations; require candidates to name at least one agent.

"On the question of funding, financing for political parties, the following recommendations were made:

The registration of political parties to ensure greater scrutiny and accountability to members of the public in their disclosure of their assets and liabilities.

To state their aims and objectives.

To issue audited annual financial reports to the EAC that would be published by the commission.

I will just mention that it is the thinking of the EAC that perhaps the EAC should pay for this audit to be carried out.

Annual election of officers of the political parties so that the public would always be aware of who are the president, treasurer and so on of our political parties.

That all parties should disclose their method of dispute resolution.

Affirmative regulations should be provided for the disclosure of the total amounts contributed by private sources.

Affirmative regulations would be established regarding the limit that could be received in cash or kind.

Registered political parties would be eligible to receive public funding to a prescribed minimum.

To limit the maximum expenditure for election.

Parties and candidates are going to be requested to report total expenditure for local and general elections.

Tom Tavares-Finson, JLP member, EAC

"Significant progress has been made over the years and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is committed to continuing that progress within the framework of the EAC. There is in fact wide agreement in relation to the question of campaign financing. A number of areas are left to be discussed but there is agreement between the political parties within the ambit of the EAC.

"The first thing that needs to be done, which is, as I said, being done as we speak, is the establishment of an electoral commission. And indeed, it is the establishment of the commission which would be the final phase of removing from the political parties influence over the political system.

"The legislation establishing the commission gives the commission authority to begin to legislate the funding of political parties.

"Now, may I touch on two other matters that I think are important. Disclosure, people say. Yes, we must have disclosure. I do not believe that it is the view of either political party but I am speaking for the JLP. I do not believe that we are speaking about public disclosure.

I think that where we are heading is to a situation where disclosure would be made to the commission. So, I suspect that there would be some disappointment there. And I am not sure that we are in a position at this time to look at state funding of political parties or campaign financing, state funding of campaign financing, beyond the very basic - the maintenance of a constituency office, the maintenance of some central party structure.

"The registration of political parties, which we do not have now, is an integral part of the system of reform because unless the law recognises the political party as opposed to the candidate, then there can be no monitoring of the parties' financing.

So ,where we are going from this is this: Establish the commission, move towards the registration of political parties and thereafter, once you have the parties in a situation where there is a question of them being registered, you are requiring certain things of them, then you will get the question of some limited amount of state financing.

"The Representation of the People Act is the legislation which governs the electoral process now and we are anticipating that all the required changes that relate to political financing, that is to say, the financing of political parties and campaign financing, we believe that amendments to that legislation can deal adequately with all the questions which might arise."

Professor Trevor Munroe - Government Senator

"First of allÉ regarding enforcement. It is important for enforcement of Form 22, the requirements for declaration (provided for in the Representation of the People Act) even if it means outsourcing the financial (or) the accounting mechanisms in the short run. There is on the Parliamentary records, in answers to questions I raised, an indication of the extent of delinquency and non-enforcement but thirdlyÉ the enforcement goes much broader. This law deals with bribery, it deals with three things, it deals with undue influence.

"Under this law, if a person goes into a bar, buys out the bar on behalf of a candidate whether Parish Council or otherwise or puts on a curry goat feed, under this law those are breaches. The sanctions may be in need of strengthening but they are not insignificant. The fine if found guilty is between $20,000 and $80,000 or imprisonment of not less than three years and in addition to that, disqualification from being a voter or being able to stand as a candidate for the Parish Council or the House for seven years. Now, one may say, this is happening everywhere, but that is what we have to begin to clean up and I don't think it is beyond the ingenuity of an increasingly professionalised police force to do the kind of sting operation which they carry out in relation to trafficking in human persons and others, where you go into the bar and you appear to be a citizen and you start to hold people who are in breach of these fundamental principles as set out in the ROPA (Representation of the People Act) so I think the enforcement issue goes beyond the question of Form 22, reporting. If you really want to clean up, let us make some examples and then signal, shock the political system into understanding that this is a new beginning.

Wherever we start, let us start, we need to lock up some people because this thing is going on too long now. We have to start as well to enforce the disclosure requirements as they exist now".

Beverly Lopez, president PSOJ

"I had gotten this document (setting out the reform proposals) and I had looked at it and I don't see any reason why we shouldn't implement the eleven points of agreement and the two points in respect of sanctions. There is clearly concern from the Private Sector in respect of how much information is given out as to who gives who what, but the fact that the information is going to be - I am seeing it here as a total amount contributed by the private sector and it is being given to the Commission- then I think clearly it should not be too difficult to get them to agree to this. It would mean that we would have to have discussion with the group but I don't see that we could object to any of the items I have read here so I think we - I would almost say- have consensus

"I think when you re-read it, it assumes there is going to be more money out of the budget being given for political funding and there is a concern about that. I think one of the things we would certainly support is the whole matter of limiting the expenditure on elections because I think sometimes we do go overboard without realising what we are doing. You know, the 'mother of all conferences' must have cost a lot of money. For a country that is suffering the kind of problems we are suffering, I don't see why we should be spending that kind of money".

Judith Wedderburn, Executive Director, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES)

"FES is related primarily to the German historical experience, where as you know, after the war the political process concluded that a party should never ever again be subject to such interference by the state in support from big business so that the party itself could not function the way it was understood it to be so right after that time, Article 21 was adopted in the German constitution which carved out for a party a specific place in constitutional law. As a result of that law which was subsequently passed by the German Parliament, very really sophisticated and detailed regulatory framework was designed which governed every aspect of a party's life and function in Germany.

"One thing I want to share is the first provision of the law which says, 'Political party shall participate in the formation of the political will of the people'. When you talk with Germans their understanding (is) that a political party is not only about campaigning; there are other things that it needs to do. Like other institutions in society, whether it be the church, the media or the school, a political party has a role in forming and shaping the political will of the people. So there are some things it has to do and the law provides that core set of activities should not in any way be threatened by state interference or private funding, either local or foreign. The regulations that are in place are to ensure that it doesn't happen.

"The law specifically, or the guidelines that are applied to funding, therefore seek to prevent two dangers: exclusive or extreme dependence on private funding or on dominant public funding because it is understood from that relationship, that a close relationship of either will lead to either a conflict of interest and undue involvement of the private sector in political decision making or domination of parties by the state and interference in their own populations.

So from that there are some detailed regulations regarding private donations, who it can come from, how they have to be disclosed.

There is a specific section on disclosure of all donations requiring publication of names, address, amount, etc. Later on we could get perhaps into some more of the details about the public accountability, which organisation is responsible for receiving the report, in this case it's the President of the Parliament and make a specific role for the Speaker of the Parliament.

There is also a role for the constitutional court in resolving any of the charges that are made against a political party; (which) if it feels it has been unduly charged in respect of the accounting for funds, can file in the constitutional court which has, of course, the ultimate say".