Gail Alexan­der

Pro­posed cam­paign fi­nance re­form law ahead which will re­quire all par­ties to be reg­is­tered with a spe­cial unit of the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC), means that all par­ties cur­rent­ly list­ed with EBC will have to reg­is­ter anew and meet the pro­posed re­quire­ments.

And, among the bill's pro­pos­als, do­na­tions to par­ties from peo­ple with State con­tracts will have to be de­clared pub­licly– and any­one form­ing a po­lit­i­cal par­ty will be re­quired to have 100 peo­ple mak­ing a de­c­la­ra­tion to EBC.

The pro­pos­als are part of the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act (Amend­ment Num­ber Two).

Draft­ed by for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al- Rawi, it's de­signed to pro­vide more ac­count­abil­i­ty where po­lit­i­cal par­ties are con­cerned, par­tic­u­lar­ly via fi­nan­cial mon­i­tor­ing of cam­paign fi­nance as­pects.

It was in­tro­duced in Par­lia­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley in May 2020 and re­ferred to a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) for ex­am­i­na­tion.

The JSC is due to re­port in two weeks ac­cord­ing to Par­lia­ment’s web­site.

The web­site al­so stat­ed the JSC held sev­er­al meet­ings on the bill since the start of the year–the last up to Mon­day.

The bill can be passed by a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty – Gov­ern­ment votes alone.

The bill pro­vides for the reg­is­tra­tion of po­lit­i­cal par­ties, dereg­is­tra­tion of par­ties, mak­ing par­ties ac­count on fi­nances and pro­pos­es reg­u­la­tion of do­na­tion sources and process­es for re­ceiv­ing do­na­tions.

It sets rules gov­ern­ing coali­tions and par­ty merg­ers and pro­vides for a code of con­duct for par­ties.

It al­so al­lows state fund­ing and use of state me­dia for par­ties– and stip­u­lates big fines and jail for par­ties and their of­fi­cials who con­tra­vene reg­u­la­tions on fi­nance.

The new for­mat is pro­posed to op­er­ate via the es­tab­lish­ment of a di­vi­sion of the EBC – the Of­fice of the Reg­is­trar of Po­lit­i­cal Par­ties.

An as­so­ci­a­tion of per­sons or an or­gan­i­sa­tion will not be able to op­er­ate or func­tion as a po­lit­i­cal par­ty un­less reg­is­tered in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the fu­ture Act.

Po­lit­i­cal par­ties will have to be reg­is­tered in or­der to field can­di­dates for an elec­tion.

In the cur­rent sce­nario where the Reg­is­ter doesn’t ex­ist yet, it has been con­firmed that the bill’s pro­vi­sions im­ply that all ex­ist­ing par­ties will have to reg­is­ter with this new of­fice and meet the bill’s re­quire­ments.

There are ap­prox­i­mate­ly 23 ac­tive po­lit­i­cal par­ties and about 75 dor­mant ones, it's con­firmed.

In­ac­tive par­ties will be struck out

Ac­cord­ing to the bill, the EBC will be able to dereg­is­ter a par­ty that hasn't nom­i­nat­ed a can­di­date for three con­sec­u­tive elec­tions since the time of its first reg­is­tra­tion.

To be reg­is­tered a po­lit­i­cal par­ty or ap­pli­cant par­ty shall have at least 100 mem­bers who are elec­tors. On or be­fore the 1st of Oc­to­ber of every year, the par­ty must pro­vide the EBC with the names and ad­dress­es of 100 elec­tors and their de­c­la­ra­tions that they are mem­bers of the par­ty.

The par­ty must state the names/con­tact de­tails of per­sons hold­ing each of the par­ty of­fices, name/con­tact de­tails of the par­ty’s ap­point­ed au­di­tor and names/ad­dress­es of the 100 elec­tors who signed the de­c­la­ra­tion.

The bill de­tails ex­ten­sive arrange­ments for reg­u­lat­ing the fi­nan­cial af­fairs of the par­ty in com­pli­ance with An­ti Mon­ey Laun­der­ing, Caribbean Fi­nan­cial Ac­tion Task Force and oth­er risk as­sess­ment for­mats.

Par­ties will have to sub­mit an­nu­al re­ports to the EBC and the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al.

A par­ty can be dereg­is­tered if it fails to com­ply with any pro­vi­sion/ re­quire­ment of the Act - in­clud­ing sub­mit­ting the re­ports to EBC or the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al.

Among claus­es, par­ties won't be able to ac­cept or use il­lic­it or il­le­gal mon­ey; or pub­lic re­sources oth­er than those al­lo­cat­ed to the po­lit­i­cal par­ty un­der the act.

They will not be able to es­tab­lish/main­tain a para­mil­i­tary force, mili­tia or sim­i­lar or­gan­i­sa­tion or have any links with ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Anony­mous do­na­tions not ex­ceed­ing $50,000 to a can­di­date or reg­is­tered par­ty will be al­lowed but do­na­tions which ex­ceed that amount would have to be dis­closed.

Pro­vi­sions will in­di­cate who may be per­mis­si­ble donors and oblig­a­tions of donors.

A pub­lic reg­is­ter of dis­clos­able do­na­tions will be es­tab­lished and pub­lic in­spec­tion of re­turns of cam­paign ex­pen­di­ture will al­so be done.

Cri­te­ria will be set for over­seas do­na­tions/con­tri­bu­tions.

The bill pro­vides re­quire­ments for elec­tion ad­ver­tise­ments and who may be el­i­gi­ble as pro­mot­ers.

Two or more reg­is­tered par­ties may, at any time oth­er than the pe­ri­od be­gin­ning thir­ty days be­fore the is­sue of a writ for an elec­tion ap­ply to be­come a merged reg­is­tered po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

A coali­tion agree­ment en­tered in­to be­fore an elec­tion shall al­so be de­posit­ed with EBC at least three months be­fore the date of an elec­tion. (GA)