3.1.5 Increasing Public Awareness
Political finance is crucially important in any democratic state today. How those wishing to run a country (or a local government area) raise and spend money when running for elections, and how political parties finance their activities, is essential for how the democratic process functions, and for the accountability of our elected representatives. There is a clear link between illicit political finance and corruption.
The role of money in politics is also critical to public confidence on the political and electoral processes in any country. If the public is confident that their politicians listen to the voices and act in the interest of the electorate, their trust in the political system will be much higher than if the public expect that the politicians will rather listen to those who provide substantial financial support, and act in the interest of oligarchs and big business.
However, the importance of money in politics for the daily life of average citizens is not always obvious to everyone. Indeed, it is often a major challenge to explain how seemingly technical details of donation bans, spending limits and public funding relates to the daily life of average citizens, which also applies to efforts to enforce such regulations. This can prove a major issue to a public institution mandated to increase transparency and public awareness of the role of money in the political process.
A lacking public awareness of political finance, its regulation and the efforts to bring transparency to it, can be detrimental to democracy in many ways. A partial understanding of existing efforts in this field can feed misunderstandings and false narratives of how politics is funded, and further undermine public trust in the political process. Cynicism regarding efforts to oversee and increase transparency in political finance can also reduce the opportunities for the oversight institution to benefit from the public’s assistance in controlling submitted financial reports, and in reporting potential violations of political finance regulations. For example, the electorate will be less likely to report potential cases of vote buying or abuse of state resources, or to point out omissions in financial reports, if they do not expect that doing so will lead to relevant consequences.
Although it may not be explicitly stated in legislation, as a political finance oversight institution you therefore have the challenging tasks to:
- Increase public awareness about the importance of political finance for the democratic process
- Increase public awareness about the impact of political finance on the everyday life of average citizens
- Highlight existing regulations regarding political finance, including requirements of financial reporting
- Emphasise the work of your institution in monitoring compliance with and enforcing existing regulations
In doing this, you should seek to acknowledge challenges and shortcomings that exist, while stressing the positive efforts being carried out, and the importance of the public engaging in assisting this work. Make sure that your efforts to raising public awareness are directly centred in your Communication Strategy.
There are three main routes that you can use to raise public awareness about political finance:
3.1.5.1 Direct outreach to the public
Where possible, your institution should seek to directly engage the public on raising awareness of the importance of political finance. Direct communication allows you to transmit your key messages without a middleperson who may have their own particular agenda, or who may not completely understand the issues involved.
It is very useful if your institution produces basic information about political finance, its regulations and what this all means for the general public. For example, the Australian Electoral Commission has a Frequently Asked Questions with basic information (though admittedly mainly aimed at candidates), while the Electoral Commission of South Africa explains in basic terms the legislation in a dedicated document.
Raising awareness about political finance and of how parties and election contestants raise and spend money is also closely related to how you publish received financial reports. While the publication of data will most likely include complicated concepts and financial terminology, it helps public awareness if you can provide a glossary and make the data as easily understandable as possible. You may also want to guide users to information that may be most relevant to them, for example where they can search whether a certain person or company has made any political donations, the Federal Election Commission in the US would be one example.
Unfortunately, there are in most situations significant limitations on how much you can do to directly raise the awareness of the public regarding political finance. Most people are not in the habit of visiting the website of public institutions unless they have a direct personal connection to what the institution is dealing with. As a complement to your efforts to raise public awareness regarding political finance directly, you should therefore also consider approaches to raise awareness through engagement with civil society groups and the media.
3.1.5.2 Relationship with CSOs in raising awareness
Civil society organisations (CSOs) that have a particular interest in the political process, rule of law, governance and democratic practices can be useful partners to your institution in raising public awareness about political finance. There can always be a risk of political bias among CSOs, and your institution should be careful not be seen as giving approval to or supporting a particular group, but this does not mean that you should not engage with CSOs in a proactive and positive manner. Such engagement can help keep CSOs accurately informed about the law, the actions you are taking to implement the law and the challenges you are facing in doing so. CSOs must also be free to criticise the work of your institution in overseeing political finance in any open and democratic society. Criticism from CSOs is something your institution must accept, though naturally you should explain your side of any story, and seek to clear up any misunderstandings that may occur.
CSOs may have more capacity to address issues relating to raising awareness regarding political finance and its transparency than an oversight institution that is also mandated to receive, review and publish financial reports, to provide guidance to political parties and election contestants etc. In addition, CSOs are not bound by the same requirement as public institutions to avoid any suspicion of bias. They may for example publish information about which parties that have received the largest corporate donations, or which parties that spent most money on negative advertising – approaches that it may not be suitable for a public oversight institution to adopt.
As is discussed elsewhere in this toolkit, make sure that you publish information about your engagements with civil society groups on your website, to increase transparency about your activities and to show your proactive stance on increasing awareness – this is for example done by the State Audit Office of Georgia.
3.1.5.3 Relationship with media in raising awareness
Perhaps the actor with the highest potential of raising public awareness about political finance is the media, both traditional and new forms of media, including everything from newspapers to television to bloggers and influencers. The same issues of potential bias and lack of understanding that relate to CSOs also apply to the media, but your institution should seek to provide accurate and objective information that can be transmitted to the general public through the many different channels available to various media outlets.
If your institution has a communication department or a press officer, engage with this person(s) frequently to ensure that any information you wish to communicate about political finance is presented in a way that maximises the chances of media picking it up and transmitting it further.
In general, journalists are often less interested in detailed data from submitted financial reports (unless it is easily digestible), but they are more likely to be interested in receiving information in a timely manner.
You can also produce articles with general information about party and campaign finance, including infographics that media outlets can use in their reporting - as in this example from Norway.