Campaign reform debated

The senior ruling Civic Democratic Party (ODS) is pushing a proposal to ban the practice of waging anonymous political campaigns during elections as part of a larger reform package it hopes would make campaign financing more transparent.

The seven-point reform package also calls for the creation of a fund that would pay for an impartial, outside organization to monitor the financing of all political campaigns while also requiring that parties release detailed reports of their campaign expenses, as well as all political donors, online.

ODS spokesman Tomáš Bartovský said the country's campaign expenditures have gotten out of hand given the number of fierce national elections that have occurred in the past three years. Since 2008, there have been five countrywide elections, including the aborted autumn elections of 2009.

"These elections have initiated reflections of how to create more efficient and transparent campaigns," Bartovský said. "We believe our proposal will open a credible view of campaign funds and create fairer conditions."

The ODS and the Social Democrats (ČSSD), the country's two largest and wealthiest political parties, have been sparring over campaign finance reform for a number of years as both parties admit the way campaigns are funded is in drastic need of an overhaul, but the two sides have not been able to come to an agreement on how to go about it.

ČSSD officials declined to respond to The Prague Post's numerous requests for comment.

Clearing the smear

The center of the ODS proposal is the banning of anonymous campaigns, which ODS leaders believe create an easy way for a political party to smear opponents with expensive advertisements that never show up on that party's campaign expenditures.

"It's an easy way to besmirch your opponents without having to project that cost into the campaign budget," Bartovský said.

The proposal calls for any party engaging in anonymous campaigning - as well as any media outlets publishing such advertisements - to be fined.

"It's important to give the media and the advertising sales people bulletproof arguments to resist unfair demands of those who don't wish to act transparently," Bartovský added.

In June, the ČSSD proposed capping all election campaigns at 80 million Kč, but the ODS rejected the idea as a means of discouraging free political competition. Other critics derided the proposal as benefiting only the ODS and the ČSSD as they are the only parties capable of raising such a sum. In the 2010 elections, the ODS reported expenditures of 213 million Kč, while the ČSSD declared 184 million Kč. The ODS has repeatedly asked the ČSSD to release an itemization of its campaign expenditures from 2010, but the Social Democrats have refused.

Though the ČSSD has publicly come out in support of the ODS's proposal to ban anonymous campaigns, Bartovský said his party questions the Social Democrats' commitment to reforming the campaign finance system.

"We appreciate that they take our proposal seriously," he said. "But we have published all the figures on our parliamentary campaign from last year. If they aim to take part in the discussion on bringing more transparency to party campaigns, they should do the same."

Political analyst Jiří Pehe said the two parties' bickering on campaign reform amounts to little more than political posturing for voters as both parties would stand to lose more than they gain from making elections truly transparent.

"Both parties know they have the same skeletons in their closets," he said. "So they need to either order some sort of audit for all parties or just let it be. They really don't want to push too hard because they know too many things about each other. So they'll just keep playing this game for the voters."

Jack Buehrer can be reached at
jbuehrer@praguepost.com