TIAC representative presented Armenia country report during “Money in Politics” regional conference
On June 19-20, 2017 a regional conference “Money in Politics: Lasting Challenges and International Practices in Eastern Europe” was held in Tbilisi, Georgia. The conference brought together 120 practitioners, civil society, as well as party activists and political finance experts from more than twenty mainly eastern European countries to reflect on lessons learned regarding the effective enforcement and monitoring of political finance legal frameworks and mechanisms for improving existing regulations. Varuzhan Hoktanyan, Project Director and Khachik Harutyunyan, Anticorruption Expert of Transparency International Anticorruption Center (TIAC) took part in the conference. Varuzhan Hoktanyan presented the findings of Armenia country report during “Tendencies in the Eastern Partnership Region” side event, addressing political corruption.
The conference aimed to identify areas of political finance implementation that require reforms, using OSCE/ODIHR and Council of Europe Election Observation Missions’ reports as well as GRECO Reports, and offer suggestions on how to design such reforms; discuss the impact of money on politics, especially in the context of the Eastern European countries. Moreover, it looked at the topic of money in politics from the diverse angles, inter alia, the issue of trust in politics, new technologies and the disclosure of political finance information, sources of funding for political parties, financial incentives to increase women’s political representation, and the overview of the international best practices to fight corruption and the misuse of administrative resources during the election periods. The panelists discussed and identified the challenges faced by political parties in terms of reform and fundraising, and also overviewed the existing mechanisms and regulations to minimize the negative impact of money on politics. They stressed the negative role played by the oligarchs during the elections, as well as the need to embark on an actual implementation of the laws which have been already adopted. Panelists agreed on the necessity of changing the status quo vis-à-vis the political party funding and emphasized on the increased role of the societal engagement.
The conference was jointly organized by Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), State Audit Office of Georgia, Council of Europe (CoE), Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR), International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and Transparency International Georgia (TI).
