"Political party finance is a critical part of strengthening our political party system."
"Political party finance is a critical part of strengthening our political party system."
(Continued from Monday)
The process would be complicated for independent candidates. To incentivize party membership, for independent candidates to run for an elected position, they must be nominated by a caucus with a higher nomination quota, for example at least 5 percent of the registered voters in each of at least two-thirds of the total constituent units or local government subdivisions within a particular local government unit. For example, if there are 10 towns in a province, for an independent to run as a candidate for provincial governor, he or she must be nominated by at least 5 percent of the registered voters in each of at least seven towns in the same province.
Why is it important to impose nomination quotas? This way, political parties would have to take nominations less arbitrarily, and thus ensure a more inclusive process in the election of political candidates. To this end, political parties must be required to conduct open political conventions where candidates will be openly nominated, with Comelec representatives in attendance. Therefore, even if a spouse or a son of an incumbent politician would aspire to run for a political office, he or she would have no choice but to submit into an open intra-party process.
Since political candidates are nominated by the party membership, an elected official who decides to leave the political party from which they stood as candidate to join another one automatically loses his or her right to the same political office. This is without prejudice though to the right of a political party to align itself with a coalition of parties, for example to join the majority or the minority in Congress. If for some legitimate reason, an elected official decides to leave his or her party, the option available is to become independent. Imposing party discipline strengthens the party organization and keeps the political balance that voters decided on in the last election. Therefore when the person who leaves (or is expelled from) his or her political party loses his or her position, the party can decide whom they want to assign it to. Politicians who lost their seat by transferring to another political party or those elected as independent and have joined another political party may not be nominated as a candidate in the immediately succeeding election.
Political party finance is a critical part of strengthening our political party system. Therefore, in addition to raising funds through membership dues, contributions made by members and donations in cash or in kind made to the party, a law must be passed entitling political parties to funding from the State to complement intra-party financing. The subsidy can be used only for political party operations and party development, such as political research and the training of party leaders and officers. The criteria for the allocation of funds for political parties shall be based on an agreed set of criteria such as the proportion of votes received by the party in the last elections, the size of party membership, including the number of registered local chapters and number of sectoral arms and parallels, and the ability of the party to carry out programs and projects related to voter education, leadership training and other constituency-building activities.
In return, political parties must be required to submit an annual financial statement and be subject to a government audit. Failure to submit the financial statement or refusal to undergo an audit shall forfeit the party’s right to government funding. With government funding available to political parties, politicians who leave their political party to join another must reimburse all funds released to them by their former parties of affiliation, including a surcharge fee.
