Transparent political funding key to ensure fair elections: Namibian official

Speaker of the Namibian National Assembly Peter Katjavivi said Monday that if left unchecked the flow and influence of money in the political arena can potentially undermine key tenets of the democratic process such as electoral fairness and the integrity of officials.

Katjavivi said this when he delivered his keynote address on the occasion of the Africa and West Asia Region 2016 Policy Dialogue Series on Money in the Electoral Process held in Windhoek.

The dialogue is jointly organized by the Electoral Commission of Namibia and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance under the theme "Southern Africa: Money in Electoral Processes."

Various chief executive officers and electoral boards chairpersons from Africa and Asia are attending the policy dialogue.

Katjavivi also said the freeness and fairness of an election cannot be determined by merely assessing events on election day but on events that precede the day.

"It is imperative that the freeness and fairness of the election campaign be judged according to predetermined guidelines and legal principles. This also points to any structural obstacles to fairness which include political campaign finance," he said.

He said political finance should be examined from the viewpoint of ethics, fairness, equity, accountability, transparency and accessibility.

"Rigorous standards are especially necessary given the high visibility of campaign financing and its impact on public confidence in elections," he added.

The key challenge today, he said, is monitoring the sources of party funds and that will remain so as long as society is pluralistic and money can be laundered in various ways.

"The recent trend towards democratization in Africa has also been accompanied by agitation among extra-parliamentary opposition groups for the public financing of all political contestants," he said.

"In the recent past, certain African governments have been difficult to unseat as they have deployed state resources at will, to secure advantages over their political opponents."

According to Katjavivi, the problem of electoral funding can be dealt by requiring financial statements from parties, monitoring money flows through the political system, investigating potential violations, and making electoral funding public. Enditem