Campaign finance regulations in Sri Lanka Vs Western world
Elections are one of the main pillars of a democracy. Voting is the citizen’s right to choose their leaders from various stratas, which is granted by democracy. It is a well known fact that the lack of rules and regulations for campaign financing may dilute the caliber of contestants of an election, thus allowing uneducated, corrupt contestants to buy votes. The absence of a proper legal framework governing campaign financing has suppressed the voice of minorities including young aspiring candidates, women and parties who have genuine interests and will to move the country forward. As a result, Sri Lanka is plagued with corrupt and nepotistic leaders that only care about their patronage networks and not the majority of the country. However, unlike Sri Lanka, the presence of legislations on campaign finance is quite common across the western world, in order to ensure free and fair elections in their countries.
Being the democratic world super power, the United States of America has a system of campaign finance regulation enforced by the Federal Election Commission(EFC) with the focus of disclosure funds raised and spent by a candidate or a political party, determining what entities could contribute to election campaigns and where the money is utilized. Great Britain also has regulations over individual candidates, where the expenditures are limited and should be disclosed. France is another European country that has solid legislation over the political funding, where there is a maximum limit that is established for donations and also for the expenditures of individual candidates, in addition to legal entities being restricted from political donations. The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy received a jail sentence in September this year spending tens of millions of euros more on his campaign than he was permitted under the law.
We recently witnessed the Minister of Mass Media and Cabinet Spokesperson Mr. Dullas Alahapperuma making a statement on 30th November in support of campaign finance regulations and calling for free and fair elections in Sri Lanka thus, we can have some hope that there are politicians speaking for campaign finance regulations.
