Until 15 September – a day before elections when a ban on pre-election campaigning enters into force - the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB) has not detected that during a pre-election period any of 13 political parties which participated in the Parliament elections has exceeded a threshold of expenses allowed for placement of advertisement, postage and charity.
In accordance with the information at KNAB’s disposal two political parties have spent 97% and 95% accordingly from amount allowed for pre-election campaigning. Two more parties have reached 79% and 77% but one – 65%. At the same time - 5 political parties have spent less than 19% from allowed pre-election expenditures and there are 3 political parties which have no expenditures at all.
In regard to third party campaigning KNAB has received information about 41 such persons and in comparison with the previous elections the number has decreased as in 2010 there were 85 persons. According to the law KNAB has to examine whether campaigning performed by these persons is related to political parties’ campaigns. In cases when such relation is detected all related expenses will be added to campaigning expenses of a respective political party.
After examining information in one case KNAB has detected that the third person’s planned campaigning expenditures are exceeding the threshold. KNAB informed the respective person and it reacted by decreasing campaign in order to comply. In another case KNAB decided to ban further advertising by the third person as the threshold has been already exceeded.
Up until the election day KNAB received 71 complaints about the hidden campaigning. For comparison in 2010 KNAB received 112 complaints. However it should be noted that this year the pre-election campaigning period was two times shorter.