To­day's Ed­i­to­r­i­al

?Un­der the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act, a can­di­date for pub­lic of­fice is al­lowed to spend per­son­al­ly $50,000 on an elec­tion cam­paign. That sum, in a gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign, might cov­er the cost of a few ban­ners for a hope­ful can­di­date, and the par­ties prepar­ing for the still un­de­clared snap elec­tion are al­ready send­ing clear sig­nals that this elec­tion is go­ing to be a big in­vest­ment. Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar made her first stop on the elec­tion trail in Flori­da, USA, where she can­vassed UNC sup­port­ers for funds for the par­ty's ef­fort to un­seat the PNM. The PNM is talk­ing about mount­ing a cam­paign that will cost more than $150 mil­lion, with sums of be­tween $2 mil­lion and $5 mil­lion ear­marked for each con­stituen­cy, de­pend­ing on how cer­tain the sta­tus of the seat is be­lieved to be. Con­gress of the Peo­ple is plan­ning to spend $12 mil­lion on the 2010 elec­tion cam­paign, but the par­ty's fi­nan­cial po­si­tion com­ing out of the 2007 elec­tion re­mains un­cer­tain.

In 2009, the par­ty's deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, Prakash Ra­mad­har, ad­mit­ted that the CoP was still to re­pay debts of $2 mil­lion still owed to cred­i­tors from that cam­paign. The UNC has not de­clared a bud­get for the elec­tion cam­paign in 2010, but is be­lieved to have spent $100 mil­lion on woo­ing the elec­torate in 2007. De­spite the pro­vi­sions of the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act, this mon­ey is raised and spent through a net­work of non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions and sup­port groups al­lied with, but not di­rect­ly linked to the can­di­dates. The process is le­gal un­der ex­ist­ing laws re­lat­ed to cam­paign fi­nance, but these meth­ods qui­et­ly ig­nore the in­tent of the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act, which seeks to out­line a method­ol­o­gy for the elec­toral process that en­cour­ages can­di­dates to seek of­fice in a process that is in the best in­ter­ests of the vot­ing pub­lic.

Any coun­try's ef­forts to seek re­form in cam­paign fi­nanc­ing, in­evitably, re­turn to the re­al­i­ty that can­di­dates spend large sums of mon­ey to be elect­ed and that fi­nanc­ing comes through tor­tur­ous­ly com­pli­cat­ed back­doors with con­trib­u­tor ex­pec­ta­tions that are un­de­clared and through a process that re­mains dis­turbing­ly in­vis­i­ble to the elec­torate. In 1972, the Unit­ed States suc­cess­ful­ly brought in­to law the Fed­er­al Elec­tion Cam­paign Act, which re­quired can­di­dates to dis­close sources of cam­paign con­tri­bu­tions and cam­paign ex­pen­di­tures. Amer­i­ca's statu­to­ry lim­its on in­di­vid­ual do­na­tions and con­tri­bu­tion by par­ty and can­di­date po­lit­i­cal ac­tion com­mit­tees were set at $1,000 and $5,000, re­spec­tive­ly, in 1974. The US Supreme Court ruled against fur­ther lim­i­ta­tions be­ing sought on pri­vate spend­ing on in­de­pen­dent po­lit­i­cal broad­casts, on the ba­sis of free speech guar­an­tees un­der that coun­try's con­sti­tu­tion.

Un­sur­pris­ing­ly, de­ci­sive en­er­gies were ex­pend­ed on low­er bud­get In­ter­net ini­tia­tives, and fund­ing was re­served for broad­cast per­sua­sion in the Amer­i­can gen­er­al elec­tion of 2008. In Feb­ru­ary, 2009, Sen­a­tor Prof Ramesh De­osaran sought to raise, by pri­vate mo­tion, the is­sue of trans­paren­cy in elec­tion fund-rais­ing, through what he de­scribed as "a leg­isla­tive frame­work to gov­ern the fi­nanc­ing of elec­tion cam­paigns." Un­der­ly­ing Sen­a­tor De­osaran's mo­tion was the need for cam­paign fi­nanc­ing to move out of the shad­ows and on­to high­er moral ground, where trans­paren­cy would en­sure that all stake­hold­ers would be aware of the way that elec­tions are fund­ed. Not­ing the rise in vis­i­bil­i­ty of per­sons claim­ing to be owed mon­ey re­lat­ed to po­lit­i­cal cam­paigns, the mo­tion raised is­sues re­lat­ed to ways that leg­is­la­tion might "cleanse the sys­tem, sani­tise the sys­tem, pu­ri­fy the sys­tem, and to save many peo­ple, busi­ness, groups of one type or an­oth­er, from un­due em­bar­rass­ment."

En­shrined in T&T's Con­sti­tu­tion is the free­dom of in­di­vid­u­als to sup­port any cause that they find com­pelling, so there are con­flicts that nec­es­sar­i­ly arise in any ef­fort to bring so­lu­tions through leg­is­la­tion. The sheer scale of fund­ing be­ing con­tem­plat­ed in the 2010 elec­tions and the ev­i­dence of re­cent elec­tions sug­gest that the mil­lions be­ing raised for these cam­paigns are not com­ing from in­di­vid­u­als and fund-rais­ers alone. The share­hold­ers of pub­licly-held com­pa­nies might wish to con­sid­er the pow­er that their vot­ing rights hold in en­cour­ag­ing cor­po­rate spon­sors to de­clare their fund­ing more open­ly, as a first step in dri­ving home the im­por­tance of trans­paren­cy in the spend­ing of such large sums of mon­ey. At the heart of the is­sue of cam­paign fi­nance re­form is the chal­lenge of main­tain­ing po­lit­i­cal equal­i­ty against the dan­ger of pri­vate fi­nanciers who might be placed in an ad­van­ta­geous and in­flu­en­tial po­si­tion. That sit­u­a­tion threat­ens to re­place the core pow­er of an in­di­vid­ual vote in a bal­lot box with the per­sua­sive pow­er of moral, as well as fi­nan­cial in­debt­ed­ness, to large con­trib­u­tors.