Public funding to political parties can check the influence of black money and help control political corruption, said Centre for Civic Education (CCE) of Pakistan Executive Director Zafarullah Khan on Saturday.
Briefing journalists about CCE-Pakistan's Agenda for Political Funding Reforms (AFPFR) at Peshawar Press Club, he said presently, Pakistani parties either rely upon the leader's purse or a highly secretive and centralised system of donations that deteriorated democracy into plutocracy. "To reform this odd situation and encourage participation of maximum citizens in political process, system of public funds for politics should be introduced, he demanded.
CCE-Pakistan worked on different options for public funding, he said and added according to 2002 election figures the total number of registered voters in Pakistan was 66.7 million while only 25 million voted. "If we fix an amount of Rs 10 per vote then the total amount of public funding available to political parties be Rs 667 million and if we opt for a threshold of one per cent then on the basis of 2002 election results, only six parties namely Pakistan Muslim League, Pakistan Peoples Party-Parliamentarians, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, Pakistan Muslim League (N), Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Pakistan Muslim League (F) would qualify for public funding and it will cost the exchequer Rs 21.9 million annually."
If all the parties with representation in the parliament are provided public funding it will cost the exchequer Rs 25.9 million a year, he remarked. Khan said politics was a nation building process and by prudently investing millions of taxpayers on country's politics we can save nation's trillions that were often abused to recover electoral costs.
Zafarullah Khan said if public funding was given for electoral campaign to each candidate with the assumption that a party has fielded candidates for all 272 direct constituencies of the National Assembly with legally allowed limit of expenses Rs 1.5 million per constituency, it would become Rs 408 million per party on the time of election. Similarly, the cost of all 577 direct constituencies in the four provinces with similar assumption will be Rs 577 million per party as the legally allowed limit is one million rupees per constituency. "These costs will be far below the projected as no party has ever fielded candidates in every constituency", he added.
Explaining another option he said the legal expenditures' limit of Rs 1.5 for candidates of National Assembly and Rs one million for provincial could be reduced by offering candidates free mailing facilities and free time on public television /radio. Report about coverage of political parties in the public media should be submitted to the Parliament on quarterly basis. Similarly, the parties could be involved in civic education and voters motivation programmes of the Election Commission of Pakistan that spent Rs 966 million for that purpose in 2002. "Provision of matching grants to parties according to their legally raised funds could be yet another option", he added. Private contributions should be encouraged by giving tax exemptions and rebates, said Zafarullah Khan while pin-pointing Pakistan Muslim League (Q), Pakistan Muslim League (N) and Tehreek -i-Insaaf election manifestos that touched the issue of funding reforms. Time has come to address this important issue and the proposals articulated by CCE-Pakistan could serve as the first step in checking the filthy use of money in electoral processes. Zafarullah Khan called for amendments to Political Partties Ordinance (PPO) to allow corporate donations for politics, and tax exemption on donations to political parties.
He suggested an independent Political Parties Commission should be established with equal representation of government, political parties and civil society for fair distribution and monitoring of public funds among political parties. He said the CCE Pakistan's agenda was based on recommendations of countrywide consultative process in which representatives of ten mainstream political parties, civil society organisations, journalists and scholars participated. Khan said the Election Commission should regularly publish annual statements of political parties' accounts and should place it on its website so that people and media could easily access them, and there should be a mechanism to cross check those report. "As many polling stations as possible should be set up so that voters can easily reach voting places and millions of rupees spent on transport on polling day is saved" he advocated.
He said parties should stop selling election tickets. He urged the parties to establish academies for training their members in politics. The state should provide an enabling and respectful environment to political activists so that they can honourably take part in politics, he added. Encroachment of secret agencies in politics needs to be checked and they should refrain from doling out secret funds to any political party, leader or candidate. He urged people not to remain aloof from political process and asked them to promote the culture of donations to political parties.