It is es­ti­mat­ed that con­ser­v­a­tive­ly more than $250 mil­lion has been spent on sev­er­al elec­tions be­tween the pe­ri­od 2010 to 2015—two lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions, by-elec­tions, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion and the gen­er­al elec­tion in 2015.

Elec­tions now cost a lot of mon­ey and par­ties spend on tra­di­tion­al me­dia ad­ver­tis­ing, so­cial me­dia, web­site de­vel­op­ment, for­eign con­sul­tants and spin doc­tors, poll­sters, the pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of man­i­festos, po­lit­i­cal meet­ings, sound sys­tems, bill­boards, jer­seys, fly­ers, tele­mar­ket­ing, mu­si­cians, a va­ri­ety of usu­al cam­paign para­pher­na­lia and ac­tiv­i­ties and give­aways like cash, food cards and cell phones to bribe vot­ers.

Fol­low­ing the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion, Lor­raine Ros­tant, who was pres­i­dent of the Ad­ver­tis­ing Agen­cies' As­so­ci­a­tion at the time, quan­ti­fied the ad­ver­tis­ing ex­pen­di­ture of po­lit­i­cal par­ties at $157 mil­li­on on tra­di­tion­al me­dia, with $112 mil­li­on be­ing spent by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress/Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship alone. She said this fig­ure did not in­clude spend­ing on so­cial me­dia, po­lit­i­cal meet­in­gs, bill­boards, jer­seys, fly­ers, give­aways and tele­mar­ket­ing.

The ques­tions arise: What were the sources of the mil­lions of dol­lars spent in the last elec­tion and oth­er elec­tions over the years? Had these sources in­clud­ed “kick­backs” on gov­ern­ment con­tracts? Were some of these con­tracts with for­eign sup­pli­ers? Had for­eign gov­ern­ments been in­volved? What about casi­no busi­ness­es? Had nar­co-traf­fick­ers and mon­ey laun­der­ers made do­na­tions? Who paid for ad­ver­tise­ments by “Con­cerned Cit­i­zens?” Who were the spon­sors of “ben­e­fits-in-kind” do­na­tions?

Dr Sel­wyn Ryan, in his pub­li­ca­tion en­ti­tled Po­lit­i­cal Par­ty and Cam­paign Fi­nanc­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go, done af­ter 2002, stat­ed back then that "the sys­tem favours the old es­tab­lished par­ties which ei­ther have con­trol of the State or can tap in­to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. The sys­tem priv­i­leges in­cum­bents who can do both."

He had said, "The state-owned cor­po­ra­tions and statu­to­ry bod­ies nor­mal­ly pro­vide jobs, ser­vices (ad­ver­tis­ing, trans­port, food, mus­cle) to the Gov­ern­ment par­ty or des­ig­nat­ed in­di­vid­u­als or firms as op­posed to cash do­na­tions.

“Com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers” who con­trol in­ner-city spaces (gar­risons) and oth­er qua­si-ur­ban con­stituen­cies pro­vide mus­cle and “bal­lot fod­der” for can­di­dates and par­ties, which in turn "al­lo­cate lu­cra­tive con­tracts to man­age un­em­ploy­ment re­lief or oth­er so­cial pro­grammes which have the po­ten­tial to mo­bilise vot­ers."

Op­po­si­tion par­ties com­plain about this nexus, Ryan had said, but are pow­er­less to do any­thing about it ex­cept com­plain.

Funds are chan­nelled to par­ties in cash do­na­tions or kind (pay­ment for ad space, for trans­port, food, pro­fes­sion­al help). Many firms con­tribute to all le­git­i­mate par­ties but have their pre­ferred can­di­date or par­ty.

Over the years, fi­nanc­ing has be­come more con­cen­trat­ed..

"A few in­di­vid­u­als and firms have emerged which have con­tributed a dis­pro­por­tion­ate share of cam­paign funds, much of which are kick­backs from pub­licly pro­cured projects," Ryan said.

He claimed ev­i­dence of this could be de­rived from elec­tions in 1995, 2000, 2001 and 2002.

Ryan said this has served "to ex­ag­ger­ate the im­por­tance of wealthy donors and their cronies, and to mar­gin­alise re­form-mind­ed par­ties."

The sums raised from mem­ber­ship fees, do­na­tions, raf­fles, fundrais­ers and con­tri­bu­tions from mem­bers of the di­as­po­ra, when po­lit­i­cal lead­ers can­vass them, are small rel­a­tive to the amounts al­leged­ly raised via un­ac­cept­able and il­le­gal means.

Giv­en the al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion usu­al­ly lev­elled by the politi­cians against one an­oth­er, it is not un­rea­son­able for cit­i­zens to ques­tion where most of the mil­lions spent in the past elec­tions had come from.

How­ev­er, cit­i­zens—young and old—are the ones who are hurt when politi­cians di­vert funds from pri­ma­ry health care, ed­u­ca­tion, and oth­er crit­i­cal needs to sat­is­fy their greed and quest for pow­er.

In the Sen­ate in 2013, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor He­len Dray­ton, crit­i­cal of such ac­tion, had said, “the pow­er of in­cum­ben­cy does not lie in the abil­i­ty of a gov­ern­ment to put state re­sources at the dis­pos­al of any po­lit­i­cal par­ty or can­di­date dur­ing an elec­tion pe­ri­od or un­der­take projects that are de­signed to win pub­lic favour dur­ing an elec­tion. The pow­er of in­cum­ben­cy is the pow­er of the in­cum­bent par­ty as the gov­ern­ment to use the state re­sources to gov­ern trans­par­ent­ly and to fa­cil­i­tate de­vel­op­ment and growth of so­ci­ety.”

Ryan, for his part, had ar­gued, "The ad­dic­tion of po­lit­i­cal par­ties and their po­lit­i­cal lead­ers for mon­ey to feed their per­son­al greed and their par­ties needs pos­es very se­ri­ous prob­lems for democ­ra­cy, good gov­er­nance and fis­cal in­tegri­ty."

He said much of the mon­ey was wast­ed as can­di­dates and par­ties as­sume that the more mon­ey one spends, the greater the like­li­hood of vic­to­ry.

"This is, of course, not the case."

The cap on fi­nanc­ing

The cap on what can be spent by gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­dates is ex­treme­ly low—$US$8,000 (about TT$54,000) and is not ad­hered to. There is no lim­it to what funds par­ties can raise or spend and there is no oblig­a­tion on the part of donors to de­clare what they give or on the part of par­ties to de­clare what they re­ceive. Mil­lions of dol­lars are spent with lit­tle or no ac­count­abil­i­ty. Dis­clo­sure lev­els are ex­treme­ly low, Ryan said. He was of the view that "a free for all ex­ists" that leads to "kick­backs and cor­rup­tion."

Ryan had not­ed that "while wide­spread con­cern has been ex­pressed about the con­se­quences of the present for­mu­lae for fund­ing par­ty needs, few se­ri­ous pro­pos­als have as yet been forth­com­ing for changes to be made."

He felt that de­mands for re­form are of­ten heard but not sus­tained and that Trinida­di­ans are very tol­er­ant of er­rant politi­cians.

Ryan had lament­ed that mon­i­tor­ing by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion, the body which su­per­vis­es elec­tions, and civ­il so­ci­ety groups are cos­met­ic.

So far, no can­di­date or par­ty has been charged with an elec­tion fi­nanc­ing of­fence. The law about do­na­tion and spend­ing lim­its are un­re­lat­ed to con­tem­po­rary re­al­i­ties, he added.

The ex­ist­ing law— Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act (RPA)

En­act­ed in 1961 and mod­i­fied in 2000, the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Or­di­nance (RPO) sets out the pa­ra­me­ters by which po­lit­i­cal par­ties should op­er­ate with re­spect to cam­paign fi­nanc­ing.

The Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act (RPA) en­act­ed in 1961 has some sound prin­ci­ples on cam­paign ex­pens­es by can­di­dates.

•It states, “No ex­pens­es shall, with a view to pro­mot­ing or procur­ing the elec­tion of a can­di­date at an elec­tion, be in­curred by any per­son oth­er than the can­di­date, his elec­tion agent and per­sons au­tho­rised in writ­ing by the elec­tion agent for hold­ing pub­lic meet­ings, or­gan­is­ing pub­lic dis­plays; is­su­ing ad­ver­tise­ments, cir­cu­lars or pub­li­ca­tions or oth­er­wise pre­sent­ing to the elec­tors the can­di­date or his views or the ex­tent or na­ture of his back­ing or dis­parag­ing an­oth­er.”

Clear­ly, the ex­ist­ing law pro­hibits anony­mous do­na­tions and spon­sor­ships.

•The RPA lim­its a can­di­date's ex­pen­di­ture to US$8,000 for par­lia­men­tary elec­tions and US$4,000 for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions and man­dates them to de­clare ex­pens­es with­in 21 days af­ter the date of pub­li­ca­tion of the re­sults of an elec­tion. They must pay elec­tion ex­pens­es with­in 35 days. With­in 42 days, can­di­dates must re­port their ex­pens­es to the Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer.

•The law re­quires the Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer to pub­lish in at least one news­pa­per, a sum­ma­ry of can­di­dates’ ex­pens­es re­turns with­in ten days of re­ceipt. Re­ports are done and pub­lished.

How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to Ryan, "Lit­tle at­ten­tion is paid to the re­ports filed by can­di­dates since all are agreed they do not re­flect what hap­pens on the ground.”

•Non-com­pli­ance is il­le­gal. Fail­ure by can­di­dates to file re­ports on their spend­ing is pun­ish­able by a fine of $1,500 and im­pris­on­ment for six months. Know­ing­ly mak­ing a false de­c­la­ra­tion at­tracts a penal­ty of up to $3,000 and 12 months' im­pris­on­ment.

While can­di­dates have spend­ing lim­its, po­lit­i­cal par­ties have none and the RPA and the Con­sti­tu­tion make no men­tion of the words “po­lit­i­cal par­ties,” pre­sum­ably be­cause in­di­vid­u­als con­test par­lia­men­tary seats and could crossover to the com­pe­ti­tion and keep their seats.

PNM man­i­festo promise—Cam­paign Fi­nance Re­form (CFR) leg­is­la­tion

In their 2015 elec­tion man­i­festo, the now rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment promised that cam­paign fi­nance re­form will be a re­al­i­ty be­fore the next gen­er­al elec­tion. That elec­tion is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due in 2020.

With onl­ty three months re­main­ing in the year, how­ev­er, the leg­is­la­tion is yet to be laid in the Par­lia­ment.

PNM leader Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­cent­ly promised that cam­paign fi­nance re­form (CFR) leg­is­la­tion would be brought to the Par­lia­ment. How­ev­er, he did not con­firm when this will be done and if it will take ef­fect be­fore the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

In a ra­dio in­ter­view on Sep­tem­ber 9, Row­ley as­sured re­forms had al­ready been draft­ed and would be tabled dur­ing this Par­lia­men­tary ses­sion. Row­ley's lat­est promise fol­lowed an­oth­er in May 2016 when he claimed his Gov­ern­ment pos­sessed the will to pro­pose leg­is­la­tion to deal with the is­sue be­fore the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

In Au­gust 2013, al­though then pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona en­cour­aged elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives to en­gage the is­sue of CFR at the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of Par­lia­ment, this did not hap­pen.

Dray­ton al­so pi­lot­ed a pri­vate mo­tion in No­vem­ber 2013 call­ing for the reg­is­tra­tion of po­lit­i­cal par­ties, ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy in fi­nanc­ing and de­f­i­n­i­tions of per­mis­si­ble and im­per­mis­si­ble donors.

Speak­ing in the Sen­ate on No­vem­ber 26, 2013, Dray­ton said, “When some cam­paign donors give mon­ey to po­lit­i­cal par­ties, it is seen as an in­vest­ment, buy­ing ac­cess to de­ci­sion mak­ing."

Dray­ton said the pur­pose of leg­is­la­tion was to man­date trans­paren­cy of po­lit­i­cal do­na­tions and the prop­er ac­count­ing by po­lit­i­cal par­ties for do­nat­ed funds. The law, she said, shouldn’t de­ny par­ties the abil­i­ty to raise funds pri­vate­ly from le­git­i­mate sources, but it should min­imise the risk to gov­ern­ment and the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process by lim­it­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty for taint­ed monies fi­nanc­ing cam­paigns, and from anony­mous donors. The law should de­fine what a do­na­tion is, who are per­mis­si­ble donors and who isn’t.

Speak­ing in the Sen­ate, Dray­ton said all the for­eign laws she’d stud­ied pro­hib­it­ed state con­trac­tors from giv­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ty do­na­tions if the gov­ern­ment and the sup­pli­er had es­tab­lished the con­tract with­in a spec­i­fied pe­ri­od be­fore an elec­tion.

“It is a re­al­i­ty, that when some cam­paign donors fi­nance po­lit­i­cal par­ties, they are not sim­ply do­nat­ing, they are in­vest­ing in a fu­ture stream of rev­enues. They’re al­so buy­ing ac­cess to de­ci­sion-mak­ers,” Dray­ton said then.

Dray­ton recog­nised that not all donors have im­prop­er mo­tives but con­tend­ed that the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process of free and fair elec­tions “comes with a price” and while the politi­cians see that price as mil­lions of dol­lars, the re­al cost “is cit­i­zens’ con­fi­dence and trust…It’s not cam­paign spend­ing that re­duces pub­lic trust but the al­leged sources of funds and cor­rup­tion. Trans­paren­cy is the first hur­dle against cor­rup­tion.”

Ac­cord­ing to Dray­ton, cit­i­zens should have every right to give do­na­tions to their po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

“If we ex­am­ine the Con­sti­tu­tion un­der sec­tions 4 and 5, it recog­nised the right of cit­i­zens to join po­lit­i­cal par­ties and to ex­press po­lit­i­cal views; the free­dom of thought and ex­pres­sion, and the free­dom of as­so­ci­a­tion and as­sem­bly. A do­na­tion to a po­lit­i­cal par­ty is a tan­gi­ble ex­pres­sion of sup­port and as­so­ci­a­tion with the philoso­phies of the par­ty. In oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions, cit­i­zens can go on a web­site and see the do­na­tions in­di­vid­u­als and cor­po­ra­tions had giv­en to po­lit­i­cal par­ties. Here we be­have as though there is some­thing wrong with legal­ly sup­port­ing a po­lit­i­cal par­ty. We are afraid that some­one would find out, and, of course, this has to do with the vi­cious­ness—and di­vi­sive­ness of trib­al pol­i­tics.”

For­mer chair­man of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) Nor­bert Mas­son, mean­while, called for ur­gent at­ten­tion to be paid to the mat­ter in Oc­to­ber 2014, af­ter po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj es­ti­mat­ed that $330 mil­li­on would be spent on the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

In April, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi claimed CFR leg­is­la­tion would have been laid with­in weeks which would make it man­da­to­ry to reg­u­late par­ties' fi­nanc­ing. In Ju­ly, he con­firmed a draft of the leg­is­la­tion had been com­plet­ed but ad­mit­ted it re­quired "one small clean-up at the leg­isla­tive re­view com­mit­tee” be­fore it went to Cab­i­net.

It re­mains un­clear if this process has been com­plet­ed.

Ef­forts to con­tact Row­ley and Al-Rawi for fur­ther con­fir­ma­tion were un­suc­ces­ful. They did not re­spond to ques­tions sent via What­sApp.

The first step

If the Gov­ern­ment brings the Cam­paign Fi­nance Re­form (CFR) Bill in 2020, as Row­ley had said, it would be the first step as an act of good faith in keep­ing with the PNM’s man­i­festo promise. In the least, his Gov­ern­ment would have gone be­yond promis­es and made sub­stan­tial progress to­wards reg­u­lat­ing cam­paign fi­nanc­ing.

It’s ob­vi­ous any pro­posed CFR leg­is­la­tion tabled now or clos­er to the elec­tions won’t have any ef­fect on the core pur­pose, which is the manda­to­ry de­c­la­ra­tion of the sources fi­nanc­ing start­ing with the 2020 elec­tion cam­paigns. Pol­i­tics is ad­ver­sar­i­al by na­ture and there’s usu­al­ly much con­tention over po­lit­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive pro­posed laws, in fact, most bills it would seem. Con­se­quent­ly, there’s no cer­tain­ty that a CRF Bill would sail through both hous­es of Par­lia­ment, be­come ful­ly pro­claimed and op­er­a­tionalised in less than a year. It isn’t like­ly to re­quire a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty.

If even the un­usu­al hap­pens through some in­ter­ven­tion oth­er than di­vine and both Hous­es ap­prove it, the bill can­not be­come law un­til there are sup­port­ing reg­u­la­tions and the hu­man, tech­ni­cal and oth­er re­sources are put in place to ad­min­is­ter it, un­less of course the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) al­ready has the ca­pac­i­ty, which is doubt­ful. The CFR may pro­pose the es­tab­lish­ment of an­oth­er in­de­pen­dent au­thor­i­ty to ad­min­is­ter the new sys­tem and give it teeth to mon­i­tor spend­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, en­force the law and pros­e­cute of­fend­ers. Whether the EBC or an­oth­er in­sti­tu­tion will have such pow­ers is left to be seen and will demon­strate how se­ri­ous the Gov­ern­ment is about CFR.

A cam­paign was launched

A sig­na­ture cam­paign was launched in 2002 by a civ­il so­ci­ety group­ing in T&T which calls it­self the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form Fo­rum, which has CRF as one of the five-point items in its' Cit­i­zens' Agen­da for Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form as a far reach­ing pro­pos­al for cam­paign fi­nance re­form.

Ryan had said that the pro­pos­al called for:

•The manda­to­ry pub­lic reg­is­tra­tion of all fi­nan­cial con­tri­bu­tions to par­ties above TT$500-$1,000 with­in one week of re­ceipt;

•No re­ceipts are to be legal­ly per­mit­ted with­in the two fi­nal weeks of an elec­tion cam­paign; sig­nif­i­cant con­trib­u­tors of more than $2,500-$5,000 could be ex­clud­ed from re­ceiv­ing any state-re­lat­ed con­tracts and/or serv­ing in any min­is­te­r­i­al or oth­er po­si­tion that has the pow­er to award con­tracts;

•On­ly lo­cal cit­i­zens re­sid­ing abroad should make con­tri­bu­tions but with the same dis­clo­sure re­quire­ments for na­tion­al­ly-based cit­i­zens;

•The State should pro­vide par­ty fi­nanc­ing; to avoid abuse, such par­ty funds should be au­dit­ed in­de­pen­dent­ly; and the num­ber of votes the par­ty amassed in the pre­vi­ous elec­tion should in­flu­ence the size of state funds.

In Ryan's re­port, he stat­ed, "There is no regime of reg­u­lat­ed slots in any me­dia house. No au­thor­i­ties ex­ist to reg­u­late the con­tent and ex­tent of me­dia cov­er­age. Me­dia hous­es have, how­ev­er, es­tab­lished a Com­plaints Coun­cil to which rep­re­sen­ta­tions can be made year round. Few com­plaints are re­ferred to this body. Dis­clo­sure lev­els are ex­treme­ly low. De­mands for re­form are of­ten heard but are not sus­tained."

Al­though the Me­dia Com­plaints Coun­cil (MCC) was es­tab­lished in the ear­ly 1990s and op­er­at­ed for a while, it is not cur­rent­ly op­er­a­tional. How­ev­er, of­fi­cials have in­di­cat­ed it is ex­pect­ed to be re­ac­ti­vat­ed ahead of the up­com­ing elec­tion sea­son.

Mean­while, the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form Fo­rum is al­so not ful­ly func­tion­al at this time and as such, of­fi­cials have said it would not be pru­dent to com­ment on re­lat­ed mat­ters.

JSC Sub­mits Rec­om­men­da­tions for Cam­paign Fi­nance Re­form

A 2015 Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) ap­point­ed to pro­pose a leg­isla­tive frame­work to gov­ern the fi­nanc­ing of elec­tion cam­paigns found that un­der the ex­ist­ing pro­vi­sions, cur­rent leg­is­la­tion did not com­pel po­lit­i­cal par­ties to iden­ti­fy fi­nanciers, thus lack­ing trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty re­lat­ing to the dis­clo­sure of how pub­lic and cor­po­rate funds were be­ing spent.

On the amount of monies spent on elec­tion cam­paign­ing, the JSC wrote, “It is clear that ex­pen­di­ture over the last five gen­er­al elec­tions has far ex­ceed­ed this amount ($54,000) and the sources of that fund­ing re­main opaque.”

They rec­om­mend­ed, “There must be lim­its on pri­vate cam­paign fi­nanc­ing of po­lit­i­cal par­ties and can­di­dates in or­der to pro­mote fair com­pe­ti­tion dur­ing elec­tion and re­duce in­cen­tives for cor­rup­tion and un­due in­flu­ence in pol­i­tics. Such lim­i­ta­tions may take the form of a ceil­ing on the amount a donor may con­tribute to a can­di­date or po­lit­i­cal par­ty, or a lim­it on the ag­gre­gate amount that a can­di­date or par­ty may ac­cept.”

Re­gard­ing lend­ing monies to par­ties and/or can­di­dates, the JSC said if this was per­mit­ted, leg­is­la­tion should pro­vide cer­tain rules and lim­i­ta­tions in­clud­ing per­mis­si­ble lenders, the max­i­mum val­ue of loans, the max­i­mum re­pay­ment pe­ri­od, and the terms of re­pay­ment in­clud­ing in­ter­est rates.

They in­di­cat­ed that pub­lic cam­paign fi­nanc­ing should be con­sid­ered and pro­mot­ed as a means to lev­el the play­ing field be­tween elec­toral con­tes­tants, to pro­mote po­lit­i­cal plu­ral­ism, and to avoid un­due re­liance on wealthy pri­vate donors.

The JSC al­so sug­gest­ed that lim­i­ta­tions on cam­paign ex­pen­di­ture must be in­clud­ed to en­sure equal­i­ty of op­por­tu­ni­ties among the var­i­ous po­lit­i­cal forces and lev­el the play­ing field, thus en­sur­ing the free choice of vot­ers is not un­der­mined by dis­pro­por­tion­ate ex­pen­di­ture on be­half of any can­di­date or po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

They agreed that while third par­ties should be free to fundraise, “It is im­por­tant that some form of reg­u­la­tion be ex­tend­ed to third par­ties that are in­volved in the cam­paign to en­sure trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

On the is­sue of re­port­ing, the JSC sug­gest­ed par­ties and can­di­dates main­tain records, and re­port on all di­rect and in-kind con­tri­bu­tions as well as cam­paign ex­pen­di­ture dur­ing cam­paigns.

They al­so in­di­cat­ed that dis­clo­sure of all do­na­tions and col­lec­tions be made prefer­ably on the in­ter­net and in a user-friend­ly for­mat.

The JSC which was chaired by Wade Mark in­clud­ed mem­bers Dr Bhoe Tewarie, Camille Ro­bion­son-Reg­is, Colm Im­bert, Clifton de Couteau, El­ton Prescott, Gan­ga Singh, Garvin Nicholas, He­len Dray­ton, Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald, Prakash Ra­mad­har, and Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

Ryan, Dray­ton and oth­er com­men­ta­tors have ad­vo­cat­ed for lev­el­ing of the play­ing field.

Ac­cord­ing to Dray­ton, “the law must safe­guard op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates and new play­ers by pro­mot­ing, as far as it is pos­si­ble, a lev­el play­ing field. The cur­rent sys­tem is great­ly ex­clu­sion­ary.”

Among the is­sues are hav­ing ob­jec­tive cri­te­ria for state fund­ing, the reg­is­tra­tion of can­di­dates and par­ties, mon­i­tor­ing and ac­count­abil­i­ty for funds. There are frame­works through­out the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic world.

La Guerre calls for stricter mon­i­tor­ing to tack­le cor­rup­tion

Com­ment­ing on how elec­tion cam­paign­ing has evolved over the years, Prof John La Guerre said the ma­jor prob­lem was the cost of elec­tions and elec­tion­eer­ing has gone up con­sid­er­ably over the years, adding po­lit­i­cal par­ties need to raise far more funds than they did in the past.

He said the law re­stricts them to a cer­tain lev­el, so the is­sue is to ar­rive at what is con­sid­ered a rea­son­able amount of do­na­tions to a par­tic­u­lar par­ty.

"We need to know who the donors are and to which po­lit­i­cal par­ty. There needs to be ac­count­abil­i­ty of po­lit­i­cal par­ties for the do­na­tions that they re­ceive.”

Asked how ur­gent this leg­is­la­tion was need­ed, La Guerre replied, “It cer­tain­ly needs to be up­dat­ed and all the more nec­es­sary be­fore the two com­ing elec­tions.”

He added, “There needs to be greater scruti­ny of the con­tracts be­ing award­ed to dif­fer­ent peo­ple. We can nev­er erad­i­cate cor­rup­tion in po­lit­i­cal and so­cial life. The most we can do is hope to lim­it it with­in cer­tain pa­ra­me­ters be­cause cor­rup­tion is some­thing that strikes at the ba­sics of hu­man ex­is­tence.”

Ma­haraj: The pub­lic must have democ­ra­cy which is not bought and can't be sold

Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, mean­while, em­barked on an ini­tia­tive via the Law Com­mis­sion to have a doc­u­ment on CFR pre­pared when he was at­tor­ney gen­er­al.

He said last week, “I was very in­ter­est­ed in get­ting the gov­ern­ment of the day to agree on that. There was a pa­per pre­pared and dis­cus­sions at the Cab­i­net lev­el as well as pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion, but I was no longer the AG af­ter that.”

Adding his voice to the call for CFR, Ma­haraj said, “It is very im­por­tant to have ef­fec­tive cam­paign fi­nance laws be­cause you have sit­u­a­tions in which a po­lit­i­cal par­ty can be bought by mon­ey be­cause the mon­ey sup­port will great­ly in­flu­ence and can dic­tate the pol­i­cy of the Gov­ern­ment.”

He claimed it was not un­fair to say this has been the nor­mal prac­tice on both sides of the fence as he ac­cused the sit­ting ad­min­is­tra­tions and the Op­po­si­tion of falling prey to this.

"There is a lot of mon­ey now in pol­i­tics and you will see that the same peo­ple who are fi­nanciers of po­lit­i­cal par­ties, they get a lot of ben­e­fits af­ter the Gov­ern­ment gets in­to pow­er.

"For the pub­lic to have democ­ra­cy which is not bought and which can­not be sold, I think it is im­por­tant to have very strong laws to deal with the fi­nanc­ing of po­lit­i­cal par­ties.”

Asked if he be­lieved there is enough time for the CFR leg­is­la­tion to be ef­fect­ed be­fore next year’s gen­er­al elec­tion, Ma­haraj said, "I think it is some­thing that should re­al­ly come at the be­gin­ning of the life of a Gov­ern­ment be­cause then it would be shown to the pub­lic that the Gov­ern­ment is se­ri­ous about it and it is not a po­lit­i­cal tool or pro­pa­gan­da.”

Ma­haraj claimed the present law en­cour­aged in­ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion to be giv­en to the EBC as to how much mon­ey is ac­tu­al­ly spent on an elec­tion cam­paign.

He added, "The or­di­nary per­son in T&T would not con­tribute that mon­ey, so it's re­al­ly the busi­ness sec­tor and the mon­ey is not pure gen­eros­i­ty but giv­en on the ba­sis that I would in­flu­ence if you get in­to gov­ern­ment...

So­cial Me­dia and Po­lit­i­cal In­flu­ence

As the say­ing goes, the time and tide wait for no man, and to a great ex­tent, so­cial me­dia have dug a hole in cam­paign fi­nance laws every­where. Anony­mous donors and pro­mot­ers, and fake web­sites play a desta­bil­is­ing role. Our leg­is­la­tion must ad­dress the sources of so­cial me­dia ad­ver­tis­ing and pro­mo­tion as far as it is pos­si­ble to do so. The world had wit­nessed how the ne­far­i­ous Cam­bridge An­a­lyt­i­ca turned so­cial me­dia users’ in­for­ma­tion in­to po­lit­i­cal weapons. Sim­i­lar rep­re­hen­si­ble op­er­a­tors lurk around every elec­tion. In ef­fect, the ‘mouse’ has eat­en away chunks of flesh and mus­cle in the back­side of cam­paign fi­nance laws. Nev­er­the­less, we need a ro­bust law for the or­der­ly con­duct of the elec­tions to bring as much trans­paren­cy as pos­si­ble in­to play.

State Me­dia in Elec­tions Cam­paigns

It’s no se­cret that in the past, in­cum­bent po­lit­i­cal par­ties had abused the State me­dia to the point where it had lost cred­i­bil­i­ty as a news­wor­thy source of in­for­ma­tion and for that and oth­er com­pet­i­tive rea­sons, view­er­ship de­clined. It will be in­ter­est­ing to see whether CFR ad­dress­es the use of state re­sources.

What is cam­paign fi­nance?

Cam­paign fi­nance, al­so known as elec­tion fi­nance, refers to all funds raised to pro­mote can­di­dates, po­lit­i­cal par­ties, or pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives and ref­er­en­da.

Po­lit­i­cal par­ties, char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tions, and po­lit­i­cal ac­tion com­mit­tees are ve­hi­cles used in ag­gre­gat­ing funds to keep cam­paigns alive.