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Civic Front calls for a broad debate on reforms to the political financing law

The Civic Front association asked the parliament to promote public hearings with the participation of civil society, experts and international organizations before approving new reforms to the law on the financing of electoral parties and campaigns.

In a letter sent on Tuesday to the President of the Assembly of the Republic (AR), Augusto Santos Silva, the association calls, at a time when another review process of the political financing law begins, that the discussion of the proposals that have now been submitted to the First Commission be done in a manner “ inclusive and broad manner. .

On June 17, parliament generally approved bills of the PSD It is SKILLET that modify the law on the financing of electoral parties and campaigns, but refused everyone else who proposed End tax breaks.

In the letter sent to the president of the RA, the Civic Front highlights that the two proposals to reform the law, made by the PSD and skin SKILLETwill now work on Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guaranteesafter being approved in plenary.

The letter signed by the president of the association, Paulo de Morais, and the vice-president, João Paulo Batalha, affirms that the previous modifications to the political financing law “were made without extensive public debate, technical reasoning, or the incorporation of specialists.”

In the understanding of João Paulo Batalha and Paulo de Morais, the lack of this debate resulted in:

changes that increased legislative instability, created more control difficulties, greater obstacles to transparency, objective inequalities in treatment between groups of voting citizens, in the elections of local authorities and political parties (to the benefit of the latter) and, consequently, less trust with citizens”.

For this reason, they defend that the discussion of the proposals be carried out in an inclusive and broad manner, with public hearings to civil society organizations, the national experts Y internationalcurrent and previous presidents of the Entity of Political Accounts and Financing and to the international organizations of which Portugal is a member, which have produced knowledge and issued recommendations on the matter, namely, the Group of States against Corruption (GREEK) of the Council of Europe, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The Civic Front also says that it is “available to participate in the process and suggest, if necessary, a list of hearings and requests for opinions from people and entities with knowledge and capacity.”

“Political parties cannot legislate for themselves and for their own benefit without a broad, participatory, transparent debate open to civil society,” the association also says, appealing to Augusto Santos Silva to “guarantee that citizen participation, essential for the democratic legitimacy of the changes that are made”.

Of seven bills voted on June 17, the PSD was more surgical, proposing, for example, that in electoral campaigns only bank loans associated with the common and central expenses account can be taken out or that they be contracted by the parties themselves and “delivered to campaigns in the form of advances”, which will have to be be repaid after the parties receive the grants.

Regarding the distribution of subsidies, the Social Democrats add to the law that the donations must be equated to the collection of funds in the campaign income of groups of citizens, “the existence of campaign benefits is not admissible.”

The diploma of the Social Democrats was approved with the upvotes in PSD, He comes and the only deputy of the Freevote against the ILLINOISand abstentions from P.S., PCP, BE and the only deputy of the SKILLET.

The text of the PAN provides for the “obligation of the parties to publicly disclose through their official websites their annual accounts and the budgets of the respective electoral campaigns”, and received the favorable votes of Chega, BE and Livre, against the PCP , and the abstentions of PD, PSD and IL.

Source: Observadora

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