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Article 25
 

Pre-Election Funds

 

1. Candidates, parties and party alliances shall have the right to set up pre-election funds for financing their campaign, as well as for paying the election deposit required by this Code. Candidates running for the National Assembly under proportional system only may not set up pre-election funds. The financial means in pre-election funds of presidential candidates, parties and party alliances shall be accumulated at the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia, whereas the financial means in pre-election funds of other candidates shall be accumulated in commercial banks with branches in all the marzes of the Republic of Armenia and designated by the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia. Within a day after candidates, parties and party alliances submit all documents required by appropriate electoral commissions to be nominated as candidates, they shall receive documents confirming their nomination as candidates in order to set up pre-election funds. Banks shall open special temporary accounts on the basis of those documents and written applications by candidates, parties and party alliances, or on the basis of written applications alone in the case of registered candidates and parties (party alliances). No income shall be calculated and paid on these accounts.

Pre-election funds shall be made up of:

1) the candidate’s personal means;

2) means provided to the candidate by the party that has nominated him/her;

3) the party’s own means;

4) voluntary contributions by physical persons and legal entities.

2. The following shall have no right to make contributions to pre-election funds:

1) state and local self-government bodies;

2) institutions (organizations) financed from the state budget;

3) foreign physical persons and legal entities;

4) persons without citizenship;

5) economic institutions, in the charter or share capital of which the Republic of Armenia or communities have shares;

6) organizations with more than 30 percent of their share capital in foreign means;

7) charities and religious organizations, international organizations and international non-governmental movements.

8) state non-commercial organizations. All the contributions by the above-mentioned physical persons and legal entities to pre-election funds shall be transferred to the state budget.

3. The procedures for making voluntary contributions to pre-election funds shall be defined by the Central Electoral Commission.

4. The maximum amount of pre-election fund contributions by physical persons and legal entities shall be set by this Code. Any contributions in excess of the maximum limit, as well as the amounts left in pre-election funds in case the candidates, parties or party alliances are not registered, or after elections, except in cases specified in this Code, shall be transferred to the state budget.

5. The means in pre-election funds shall be spent through authorized representatives of candidates and parties.

6. The banks, where special temporary accounts have been opened, shall report regularly, every three days, to the appropriate electoral commission about contributions to and withdrawals from the candidates’ and parties’ pre-election funds. The banks shall return to the people and entities, who have the right to make contributions to pre-election funds, all the amounts received after the maximum limit for a pre-election fund set by this Code is reached.

7. If candidates or parties use other resources for their campaign, in addition to pre-election funds, then a court may annul the registration of that candidate or party list on the basis of an application by the Central Electoral Commission.

8. All transactions with accounts of candidates’ and parties’ pre-election funds shall stop starting on the voting day.

9. The Central Electoral Commission may allow candidates and parties to make payments from their pre-election funds after the voting day as well, provided the payments are based on transactions carried out before the voting day.

10. In the event if elections are declared failed, the means in pre-election funds shall be frozen until the registration of candidates or parties for new elections. Candidates or parties re-registered for new elections may use the means remaining in their pre-election funds. In the case if candidates or parties do not register for new elections, the means remaining in their pre-election fund shall be transferred to the state budget.

11. Candidates and parties running for National Assembly shall submit declarations about contributions to their pre-election funds and the ways they were used; the declarations shall be submitted to electoral commissions that had registered the candidates or parties on the 10th day after the commencement of the election campaign pursuant to this Code and no later than six days after the end of elections. The form of the declaration and the procedures for submitting it shall be defined by the Central Electoral Commission.

 

The declaration shall contain:

 

1) the chronology of all contributions to the pre-election fund, the first and last names of all contributors, their registered address, and the size of their contribution;

2) all the expenses, the day when they were made, and information on documents

confirming the expenses;

3) the amount remaining in the pre-election fund (if any). During national elections, electoral commissions shall forward the declarations to the Central Electoral Commission’s Oversight and Audit Service within three days of receiving them. Declarations submitted by presidential candidates and parties and party alliances participating in the National Assembly elections shall be posted on the Central Electoral Commission’s website within three days, whereas copies of other candidates’ declarations may be made available to proxies, representatives of mass media, and observers.