V. Property and funding of political parties
Ceilings on donations
One draft amendment (the new Article 25) stipulates that the total amount of revenues granted to a party during a year through state financing or contributions should not exceed 0.2% of the gross domestic product, including all types of funding, both public and private. Funds that exceed this limit have to be transferred by parties to the fund of the state budget formed for financial support of the parties. Limitations to contributions are positive, as they help prevent excessive donations to parties. A link between public and private sources of funding could also be established in order to avoid a situation where a party is financed by only one of these sources. For example, the Organic Law could specify that neither public nor private donations shall constitute more than 70% of the total amount of financing received by a party. Another solution may be that both private and public limits should also comply with the maximum determined by a percentage of the gross domestic product of Georgia. Nevertheless, the establishment of a maximum level of party funding by public and private sources may be overly broad, especially taking into consideration commonplace structures in the political field, such as, pollsters working with political parties, think tanks not directly related with the party but still providing advice, reports and analyses to them. |