Asian Election Stakeholder Forum III (AESF III) August 22 – 26, 2016 Bali, Indonesia "Transparency & integrity for Quality Elections" General Election Commission Republic of Indonesia and General Election Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL)

1. Workshop Group
Campaign Finance

2. Common Challenges confronted
- Increasing use of money to influence voters (Vote buying, bribery)
- Unique to Malaysia, expenditures are higher in internal elections of political parties due to factionalism
- Gaps in the law that leave loopholes, in some countries there is the absence of a law to govern campaign
finance (Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Malaysia)
- Overspending in countries where there are limits
- Disconnect to political party laws (the political party and candidate spending gaps)
- Lack of voter education to know more about the issue and to reject bribes/vote-buying
- Enforcement of existing laws
- Ensuring that the amount reported by political parties/candidates are accurate
- No institutions or body strictly monitoring, in some cases the institution does not have the capacity to
monitor and audit
- Weak penalties or in some cases, penalties are not proportional to the degree of violation committed
- Advantage of the incumbent with difficulty tracking where the source of money come from
- Illegal Sources of funds
- Pre-campaign spending
- Role of Courts/body assigned to adjudicate cases related to campaign and political finance
- Partial support by government (subsidy) / Weak political parties needing public finance support

3. Best practices by EMBs and CSOs to enhance
transparency and integrity in terms of
Transparency Campaign Finance
- With a freedom on information act
complementing the issue, Political parties as per
law are required to be made public.
- Political donations are placed in a registered
account as a regulatory measure
- Having a separate body (control unit) to monitor
account and finance information- In Taiwan, The
control unit is also a supervisory body among
- EMB publishing to website and making all finance
reports of political parties and candidates public

4. Possible areas of cooperation between EMBs
and CSOs to further improve the process
• Supply: Rules, penalties
• Demand: Voter education
• Joint committee – as a follow-up to initial
discussions – to come up with a reference
model (to cover whole electoral cycle in the
discourse)

5. What support can regional and international groups
provide to overcome the identified challenges

6. E dorse e t to the Bali Cooperatio Electoral
Tra spare cy: Eight Keys to I tegrity
• The group endorsed the document
• No objections
• Items are proposed to be included however
agreed to further the discussion in the joint
committee