Articles 89 and 90 regulate the use of private funds for electoral campaigns. Parliamentary parties already have campaign funds due to the largess of the Assembly under Article 86 and 87 of the Code. As noted above, non-parliamentary parties are excluded from receiving public funds and must rely solely on private donations. As a result, parliamentary parties are not impacted by Articles 89 and 90 as much as non-parliamentary parties are impacted by these articles. Article 90(3) limits campaign expenditures by tying the expenditure limit to ten times the largest amount of public funds given to a parliamentary party. The problem with this formula is that parliamentary parties can establish an unreasonable expenditure limit by reducing the amount of public funds parliamentary parties take from the state budget. Article 90(4) provides a similar limit for candidates nominated by groups of voters, which is fifty percent (50%) of the largest amount of public funds given to a parliamentary party. The Venice Commission and the OSCE/ODIHR recommend that these articles be reviewed to ensure that they will not have a negative impact on non-parliamentary parties or independent candidates.
