Election/referendum campaign expense

1. An election/referendum campaign shall be funded from:

a)  the funds of a political party;

b)  the election funds opened by an initiative group of voters to fund the campaign of an independent candidate.

2. A candidate nominated by an electoral subject shall use the fund of the electoral subject nominating the candidate.

3. The basis for opening a bank account in a licensed commercial bank of Georgia for electioneering of an initiative group of voters shall be an ordinance of a Chairperson of an appropriate election commission on the registration of a respective electoral subject.

4. An electoral subject shall be obliged to submit to the State Audit Office of Georgia the information about the bank account, from which the necessary costs shall be funded for an election campaign. The information submitted on the mentioned fund should also include the contact details of the persons responsible for managing the election campaign fund.

5. Election/referendum campaign funds shall be the money deposited into the relevant bank account, as well as all goods and services received free of charge (calculated at market prices), except for the cost of free advertising time received in accordance with the law.

6. During elections, an electoral subject may not use other financial means than the respective funds.

7. The total amount of expenses incurred by the electoral subject during the year shall not exceed 0.1% of the gross domestic product of Georgia of the previous year. This amount includes the expenses incurred by the electoral subject and another person in its favour, which are determined by the State Audit Office and about which the relevant electoral subject is notified.

8. The upper limit of the total annual election expenses of an independent majoritarian candidate shall be determined as follows: the upper limit of the election campaign allowances for a political party (0.1% of the previous year's GDP) shall be divided by the total number of voters in the country and the number obtained must be multiplied by the number of voters in the respective electoral district.

Organic Law of Georgia No 6551 of 22 June 2012 – website, 29.6.2012

Organic Law of Georgia No 5438 of 22 June 2016 – website, 12.7.2016

Organic Law of Georgia No 3266 of 21 July 2018 – website, 13.8.2018

Organic Law of Georgia No 6723 of 2 July 2020 – website, 3.7.2020