Elections need to be more than just free and fair - US Ambassador

Accra, Aug. 27, GNA - The US Ambassador to Ghana, Ms Mary C. Yates on Wednesday said elections need to be more than just free and fair, "even though free and fair elections are a major element of a democratic society if they are not also competitive and inclusive, citizens may feel disaffected and democracy may suffer."

Lack of campaign resources, or uneven distribution of those resources, can frustrate an election campaign and contribute to a disaffected public, Ms Yates said at the final of a Nationwide Consultative Forum on Financing Political Parties and the Electoral Process.

The forum seeks to build consensus on the way forward for the financing of political parties and the electoral process, how to resources the parties to make them more effective in the performance of their duties and examination of the challenges of financing elections in the country.

About one hundred participants, comprising representatives of Political Parties, Trades Unions, Security Organisations, Professional Organisations and Chiefs attended the forum, which was organised, by the EC and KAB Consult, an NGO, with funding from USAID.

Sharing the United States experience in State Funding political parties with the participants, Ms Yates said there had been proposal for financing of Congressional (Parliamentary) elections, the US only finance Presidential elections.

Ms Yates said debates for campaign financing under the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) focuses on; disclosure- candidates for federal office must fully disclose their campaign contribution, public funding- presidential conventions, primaries, and general elections can be funded through the creation of a voluntary 'matching fund" programme. More

Ms Yates said Presidential candidates can choose to accept public funds and if they do, they must comply with spending limits and other restrictions imposed by the FEC.

Other FEC focuses are contribution limits-contributions to all federal office electoral campaigns are limited by amount and source. Corporations, unions and federal government contractors cannot contribute.

Campaign spending limits- this provision of the legislation was struck down by a 1976 US Supreme Court case as unlawfully restricting the candidates, citizens and associations constitutional right to free speech.

Ms Yates said the court however, did sustain voluntary limitations as a condition for receiving government campaign subsidies. The US Ambassador said public financing of US Presidential elections is not a complete subsidy and comes with strings attached. Only candidates of the two main political parties are automatically eligible to receive public funds.

During each of the two main party's primary elections, candidates must receive a certain amount of funding in at least 20 states before FEC will begin matching funds.

She said after the elections each candidate is eligible for grants covering all of the general election campaign costs, and are prohibited from spending more than the grant.

The third parties candidates could be eligible for some public funds, but only if the party received at least five per cent of the vote in the last election. More

Ms Yates said campaign reform has not halted the influence of money in politics. Candidates, incumbents and challengers alike, are compelled to raise funds constantly to keep pace with opponents, real, imagined or prospective.

Campaign finance reform she said has accomplished full disclosure, so that voters know the sources of any one candidate's campaign funds, and in Presidential campaigns, public funding assists the major parties greatly.

Participants at the forum said delays in establishing mechanisms for public financing of political parties would work to the advantage of bigger parties by virtue of their ability to raise funds to support their activities and win elections not necessarily because they possessed the ideas to solve the country's problems. They urged civil society to pursue the issue to a logical conclusion since financial constraints seemed to have placed limitations on vibrant party politicking.

They said political parties required public funding but they should let the public know their financial positions, and how they were able to achieve such financial status.

The Participants also identify as a big block ways of resource the parties and how to raise the resource, administration and supervision of the public resource mechanism and mode of disbursement.