III. DISCUSSION OF THE DRAFT NATIONAL ELECTIONS LAW AND THE DRAFT ELECTION COMMISSIONS LAW

N. Financing of elections

Article 41(17) states that “remaining unspent funds of a special account are returned to a candidate, political party”. This article does not specify any limitation on how a candidate or political party is to use these returned funds.  Allowing a candidate to retain unspent campaign funds for personal use could have a corrupting effect. In fact, allowing candidates to use unspent campaign funds for personal use could be seen as a form of bribery. The Venice Commission and OSCE/ODIHR recommend that Article 41(17) be amended to prohibit the use of unspent campaign funds for the personal benefit of candidates. Unspent campaign funds could be returned to donors on a proportionate basis, given to charities, or required to be used for some other legitimate public purpose.