Crinis, which means “ray of light” in Latin, is a new project by Transparency Internationalto shine the light on campaign and party financing and is currently being piloted in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and Peru.

Money in politics, a necessary element of a smoothly functioning democratic system, has a bad reputation. According to Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer, political parties and parliamentarians are perceived year after year to be the most corrupt institutions. It should therefore not be surprising that citizens are reluctant to devote more public money to fund the electoral campaigns of political parties.

What is counter-intuitive about this is that the accountability of public funds is higher than that of private donations. While in most countries campaign and party financing comes from a mix of both private and public donations, scrutiny generally exists only for public funds, if at all.

When information about private donations to political parties – often the larger share of that public/ private mix – is not made public, it distorts the democratic system because it denies voters the basic right to know the financial interests behind candidates when casting their ballots. Experts involved in the Crinis project estimate that, in general, less than 50 percent of funds raised are actually reported.

The Crinis project found that a lack of oversight for private donations, scarce accountability by candidates, unreliable data delivered by parties, and poor access to information were the main problems in the political systems of the countries studied.

Increasing the overall information on political party financing by pressing for transparency is important both to see where the money comes from and whose interests are at stake, but also how the money is used. In the first instance, this is especially important in countries such as Peru or Colombia, where allegations of drug money financing political campaigns abound. In the second, increasing transparency of private donations provides a more accurate account of the total amount of money received by a party, and allows greater accuracy in terms of monitoring expenditure, a preventative measure to reduce the practice of vote buying.

In addition to providing recommendation, the Crinis project examined strengths and weaknesses in the national laws and practices of the participating countries. This provides a tremendous value by providing a benchmark against which future changes can be assessed, by allowing for cross-country comparison and the development and sharing of best practices.

The Cash for Honours scandal in the United Kingdom is one such example of how loopholes in national legislation can lead to opportunities for corruption. In the UK – a country that did not participate in the first round of the Crinis project – the law stipulates that political parties must declare all donations, but not loans. The Cash for Honours scandal brought to light the question of whether loans granted to political parties were done in return for nominations for peerages. This scandal brought to the surface the weaknesses of the British political funding system and raised to the top of the political agenda the issue of political party finance reform.

When such loopholes or irregularities are found, it is essential that they be brought to light by the national and international media to create pressure for change. The media has an important oversight role in reporting such irregularities as well as monitoring candidates’ disclosure. In some cases, a strong and independent media can use their oversight role to help bring about changes to national or municipal law, as was the case when the United States Congress passed the Ethics Bill following extensive coverage of the Abramoff scandal.

In many cases, the media also has an inherent interest in keeping reporting on campaign financing under wraps, as advertising for political candidates is one of the largest expenditures of political parties in election campaigns.

In Argentina, the law on campaign financing stipulates that presidential candidates must disclose their financial information at least 10 days before the election, giving voters ample time to make an informed decision before they vote. The party of Néstor Kirchner, a presidential candidate in the 2003 election and now the current Argentinean president, disclosed campaign spending of three peso – highly unrealistic for a presidential campaign. Despite the unrealistic report Kichner submitted, his story was not widely picked up in the media.

Crinis’ findings lead to the conclusion that the democratic bar needs to be raised. To accomplish this as quickly and efficiently as possible, the Crinis project is looking ahead to working with political parties and state oversight bodies to reform certain practices and standards based on what the study has found to have worked, and where it worked. In the countries that already have oversight mechanisms in place for the use of public funds, there needs to be an expansion of those to include the monitoring of private donations.

The report is intended as a means but not an end. It is a tool that provides citizens with the information to make a more informed decision at the polls, but it must be actively used in order to hold political parties to account and pave the way for real impact.

To read more about the Crinis project, please go to: www.transparency.org/news_room/latest_news/press_releases/2007/2007_06_03_crinis_launch_en, or click here for the full report.