Financing of Political Parties and Campaigns

In a political system based on representative democracy, political parties have an extremely large influence on decision-making processes, therefore, the question of how to finance them arises as an important factor.

Ensuring as much transparency as possible in the process of financing political parties is a very important segment when eliminating the risk of political corruption. The absence of a regulated and transparent framework for financing of political parties does not only mean opening up a huge space for political corruption, but as a consequence, the functioning of democratic processes in society may be endangered.

The ultimate goal is to have an insight into the transparency of political party financing and the obligation of political decision-makers to be accountable to the public because their activities are in the public interest and are of public importance.

Political party environment by law is one in which the citizen knows who, how and to what extent finances political workers in order to avoid possible abuse, and so that citizens would know the process of financing a public activity, knowing the source of each invested fund.

In addition, in BiH, the majority share in party financing comes from the budgets of different levels of government, which is why even greater emphasis is placed on the need for public insight into the way in which parties dispose of taxpayers’ money.

Transparency International BiH has been trying for years, through advocacy activities and improvement of the legal framework, to ensure more transparent financing of political parties, while on the other hand, it regularly monitors the implementation of laws and financial reports of parties, and conducts monitoring of pre-election campaigns in order to, in a timely manner, inform citizens about the ways campaigns are financed and political parties costs, with special reference to the use of public functions and funds of institutions for campaign purposes.

Below you can find TI BIH publications and analyzes on the topic of financing political parties and campaigns.