This publication provides a unique insight into the financing of political
parties in the Parliament of Montenegro. It presents an analysis of the
official sources of revenues and expenses of regular operation of each
party individually during 2019 and 2020. We pointed out the specific
expenses of the campaign for parliamentary elections held in August
2020, hidden within the expenses of the regular operation of the parties,
as well as the bills that have never been paid.
Political parties in the Parliament provide most of the funds for their operation from the state or municipal budgets, thus, they are obliged to act in accordance with the Law on Free Access to Information. Thanks to that, we collected significant data on the financing of the regular operation of the parties in the Parliament, as well as their election campaigns.
Based on years-long experience and cooperation with numerous international organisations, we have developed a unique methodology for scoring the transparency of financing of the political parties which is presented in this publication. Based on it, we ranked the transparency of the financing of regular operation and election campaigns of each parliamentary political party.
We analysed all financial statements and audit reports, as well as nearly 80,000 individual transactions of parties in the Parliament, in order to determine whether they hid the expenses of the election campaign within the expenses for regular operation. In this publication, we pointed out the specific expenses due to which the parties increased their expenses in the year when the elections were held, especially during the election campaign.
Not a single state institution checks whether political parties paid all reported campaign expenses. This leaves a huge space for hiding of donations, if suppliers write off debts of the parties, or they are paid by a third party. Even the postponement of the payment of expenses enables the parties a more favourable position in relation to those political entities that have to settle their liabilities within the agreed deadline. In this publication, we reveal which parties did not pay significant expenses of the campaign for parliamentary elections held in 2020.
Complete publication download HERE (PDF)
