Prague, Jan 17 (CTK) – The Mayors and Independents (STAN) want to amend the Czech law on election campaigns financing as it contains major mistakes due to which the Office Supervising Finances of Political Parties cannot punish the violation of law by foreign legal entities, STAN leader Petr Gazdik told CTK on Wednesday.
“The parliamentary and presidential elections were a test of the new law on political parties,” Gazdik said.
“We have to put it quite honestly that the law did not pass the test and basic changes are needed. They should lead to a really transparent financing of election campaigns,” he added.
“There should not be any suppression of fundamental rights of citizens who are being harassed over their political views,” Gazdik said.
STAN has warned of a gap in the law constituted by the campaign commissioned by a foreign legal entity.
It refers to the case in which STAN turned to the Office Supervising Finances of Political Parties (UDHPS) over an unmarked negative campaign against one of its candidates in Karlovy Vary.
The UDHPS checked the case and stated that the campaign was commissioned by a U.S. legal entity and it has no right to punish foreign legal entities.
“If the powers of the office do not include the election campaigns paid by foreign companies, this warns of two alarming things,” Gazdik said.
“First, the office gives an instruction to all who want to circumvent the election rules: just invoice the costs of the campaign of any level through a foreign company and nothing will happen to you,” he added.
“Second, the activities of the office entirely lose their meaning because it is unable to perform its basic function, which is to supervise the transparent course of election campaigns and their financing,” Gazdik said.
The UDHPS was set up last year. It watches the observance of the financial limits for election campaign set down by law.
In the case of parliamentary elections, these are 90 million crowns and in the case of the presidential election, this is 40 million crowns for its first round. If a candidate advances to the second round, the limit is raised by another ten million crowns.
