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Venice Commission can design new options for financing of Azerbaijani political parties

Politics Materials 13 February 2009 17:17 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 13/ Trend , E. Rustamov/ The Venice Commission can design new option for financing of the Azerbaijani political parties.

"We should have text in our hand so that to set a number of parameters and say whether this option will be success. We have not yet received draft changes to the Law on Political Parties from Azerbaijan," Council of Europe Venice Commission representative Sergey Kuznetsov said to Trend in a telephone conversation from Strasbourg.

Azerbaijan's Justice Ministry has registered 52 political parties. The Law on Political Parties was adopted in 1992. No amendments have been made to law since then. The Law is expected to be amended to finance parties from the public budget. 

Azerbaijan's governing party says only political parties who take part in elections and who have seats in the parliament can be financed by the budget. The opposition politicians propose that registered parties receive financing from the state budget.

"All ways of financing political parties from the public budget must be examined. This issue must be discussed in the parliament and public. The parliament will choose the most adequate ways taking into consideration present-day standards," head of the Presidential Administration Socio-Political Department Ali Hasanov said earlier.

He said foreign grants for the parties funded by the budget will be reduced. "The political parties must be financed in a transparent way. Transparency helps parties to become one of the leading organizations of society. All countries have this experience and Azerbaijan can consider it," Hasanov said. 

Majority of European countries face problems regarding financing of political parties, Kuznetsov said. It is quite a new field and financing of parties from governmental or private sources has been debated only recently. "Majority of the European countries face this problem. Many countries seek best ways. It is impossible to say that certain ways are the best. A lot of parameters persist and it is difficult to give an unequivocal answer," he said.

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