Azerbaijan, Baku, 13 November /corr. Trend R.Novruzov / The Venice Commission suggests Azerbaijan to firstly establish exact criteria for financing political forces through the Public budget.
"Majority of the countries, which finance parties from the
budget, initially establish clear criteria of allocation of finances - on the
basis of the number of mandates in the parliament or on the basis of certain
number of votes gained by this or other party in the elections," Sergey
Kuznetsov, the representative of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe,
told Trend from Strasbourg on 13 November.
The Law on Political Parties of Azerbaijan was adopted in 1992. Up to now, no
additions and amendments were made to it. Recently the question of making a
number of additions and amendments to the existing Law became urgent. Amendments
to the law mainly envisage financing political parties from the budget.
Opposition proposes State to finance all political parties,
which have State registration. However, the authorities of Azerbaijan support to give preference to the parties, which participated in the
parliamentary elections and gained greatest number of seats in the legislative
organ.
"I do not remember examples that all political forces of the country would be
financed from the budget without any limitations. It is necessary to study the
existing models in order to determine which of them can be successfully used in
Azerbaijan," said Kuznetsov.
In Azerbaijan 52 political parties passed state
registration. Currently 12 political parties are represented in the Parliament.
The Head of the Executive Apparat of the Parliament, Safa Mirzayev, formerly
told Trend that not all parties can be financed by Public budget. According
to him, financial support can be obtained by the political parties, which
reached specific successes in the elections for Parliament.
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