• EC to decide on campaign spending within 5 days of nominations being submitted
• Election monitors propose campaign finance laws to be made effective 3 months prior to polls

With the Government declaring a commitment towards legislation to govern campaign finance law through the Regulation of Election Expenditure Act No.3 of 2023, the financing of the upcoming Presidential Election campaign has become a focal point.

Speaking to The Sunday Morning, Election Commission (EC) Chairman R.M.A.L. Rathnayake said that the campaign spending limit would only be decided upon within five days of nominations being submitted. “The EC will determine this amount after discussions with relevant candidates,” he said. 

He further said that they anticipated the new campaign finance law to have an effect on the upcoming campaign, noting: “This law was established to reduce campaign spending and create a level playing field for candidates, where all will have to spend equal amounts. Therefore, we anticipate some benefit from this law.”

According to Transparency International, unregulated campaign finance can create disparity. Imposing a spending limit on candidates or political parties is needed in order to assure a fair and competitive electoral system with a level playing field. 

The objectives of such spending limits include avoiding excessive costs in party politics, controlling inequalities between parties, and restricting the scope of improper influence and corruption in campaigns.

Further, some of the adverse impacts on free and fair elections through the unregulated use of finances include laundering illegal funds, the purchase of the allegiance of certain candidates or parties, the abuse of state resources, media patronage, favouritism by political party leaders towards wealthier candidates and the resultant loss of focus on policy priorities, and the creation of an unequal playing field.  

Estimated spending limits

Addressing campaign finance limits, People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) Executive Director Rohana Hettiarachchi said that using the Provincial Council Election spending limit as a basis, a rough estimation for spending at the upcoming election per candidate would stand at Rs. 350 million. 

“There is no limitation yet. According to the law, immediately after the nominations, within a five-day period, the EC needs to consult political parties and candidates and determine the amounts. For the Provincial Council Election, the amount has been decided as Rs. 20 per voter. On this basis, to roughly calculate the spending limit, one has to multiply Rs. 20 by nearly 17 million registered voters, which amounts to an expenditure limit of roughly Rs. 350 million per candidate.”

He however emphasised that this amount was likely to change for the upcoming polls: “However, in this election, the EC can decide to change the amount, based on its consultation with political parties and independent groups. We will get to know the amount only after the nomination.”

Challenges

Nevertheless, challenges persist in ensuring that political parties adhere to spending limits. Hettiarachchi said: “The real issue here is that political parties have already started their campaigns. They have spent millions even up to now, since they have been engaging in campaigning over the last 3-4 months. Therefore, our proposal for the future is that the law should be in effect at least three months prior to the election.”

Acknowledging that a perfect system did not exist and that it was difficult to capture a ceiling for spending, he said that PAFFREL, as an observer group, had held several discussions and was preparing a collective effort to monitor campaign spending after nominations, with efforts underway to establish online tools for citizens to submit information with evidence.

Hettiarachchi further noted that the monitoring of mainstream media should be fairly straightforward and accomplished by collecting information on paid advertisements. For social media monitoring, discussions have been held with certain social media platforms and Facebook, for instance, is providing the Ad Library option, which allows monitors to deduce the amounts spent by each party on social media advertisements. 

However, he noted that certain campaign content would not have official payment records, which complicated the task of monitoring spending. 

EC Chair Rathnayake too noted that measures were being undertaken to monitor social media in relation to campaign spending. 

When asked whether the new campaign finance law would impact spending by candidates and parties, Hettiarachchi said: “I don’t think so. They can find many loopholes around this, although we can try and there will be some sort of control.”

He said that significant amounts of money would be involved during this campaign, explaining: “It is likely that the campaigns could be run from other countries as well – campaign managers, strategies, resources, etc. could come from different parts of the world. Although the law prohibits outside individuals from contributing, there are no legal provisions to control handling campaigns. 

“Since this is a critical election, competition is quite high compared to the previous election since there are several prominent candidates. In previous elections, on most occasions there were only two credible candidates. However, this time it appears there are at least three or four such candidates.”

2019 Prez Polls

The ‘Campaign Costs Monitoring Initiative – Presidential Election 2019, Sri Lanka’ by the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV), which monitored that election’s campaign expenses, defined this as all expenses and costs incurred by a candidate or on their behalf for promoting or procuring their election. 

Such expenses and costs include, but is not restricted to, expenses and costs incurred by the candidate for the printing, publication, pasting posters/bills etc., exhibition or display of advertisements, handbills, flags, drawings, photographs, placards or posters relating to such election; the production and broadcast, on radio or television, of advertisements relating to such election; the production and publication, in newspapers, journals, or other publications, of advertisements relating to such election; the hiring or use of any premises or equipment for the holding of meetings relating to such election; transport expenses incurred by candidates (not covered above), such as hiring of vehicles, helicopters and aeroplanes, etc.; and costs incurred by the State/public for individual campaigns through the misuse of public resources.  

As per the report, the total estimated election campaign cost monitored by the CMEV was Rs. 3,796 million. Of the total estimated campaign cost, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) candidate incurred the highest which stood at Rs. 1,826 million. The New Democratic Front (NDF) candidate incurred the second highest estimated election campaign cost which was Rs. 1,737 million. 

With the SLPP and NDF being the two main political alliances contesting the election campaign, an estimated combined election campaign cost of Rs. 3,563 million had been incurred for their election campaign promotion, an almost 94% share of the total estimated election campaign cost.  

Ongoing campaigns 

Political party representatives told The Sunday Morning that campaigns were underway, although they were waiting for the campaign spending limits to be determined post-nominations. 

SLPP MP Sanjeewa Edirimanna said: “The amount will be decided according to the campaign finance law. Even for the Provincial Council Elections, we had informed our candidates to prepare according to that law. While we are preparing for the campaigns [for the upcoming elections], we have not thought of campaign expenses yet.”

He further noted that expenses would be less for this Presidential Election campaign compared to the 2019 campaign: “Even last time, what we did was meet people physically and spread awareness; we did not spend an unnatural amount of money. With the new act, spending will be reduced anyway, but this will not be an obstacle since we are prepared for a simple campaign. We are prioritising door-to-door campaigns, followed by village meetings. Next in priority will be electorate- and district-level meetings and national-level rallies.”

United National Party (UNP) Deputy Leader Ruwan Wijewardene meanwhile shared that the party was working on grassroots-level activities, getting all organisations functioning. “At the right time we will come up with a campaign. We are getting ready and as soon as the Presidential Election is called, our campaign will be underway.”

He further noted that regulating campaign finance was necessary to ensure democracy. “There has to be transparency in regard to where the money is coming from and how it is being spent. These are questions that have been raised not only in relation to the Government or the UNP but also Opposition parties as well, regarding where they’re getting the funds to do things like holding rallies throughout the year. 

“There has to be transparency when such political campaigns are conducted – this is very important for democracy to flourish. Otherwise, when governments are formed, undue influence comes in through various ways. So it’s important that the people know exactly where and how these funds are coming for political campaigns.”

National People’s Power (NPP) National Executive Committee Member MP Vijitha Herath told The Sunday Morning said that the party had not made any preparations regarding the campaign funds as yet since it was yet to be declared. He further noted that since the campaign finance law was new, they would therefore have to face it first to witness its implementation in practice. 

“Since an election is yet to be declared, we have not undertaken any activity based on the elections. However, as a party, we are undertaking various programmes prior to the election. Our campaign activities will only commence after the election is declared. At present, we are undertaking normal party activities,” he said.

Since campaign finance determines whether an election offers a level playing field for candidates, in that funds will shape candidates’ capacity to compete, the exercise will demonstrate the quality of democracy in the upcoming election.