The Tribune

By MALCOLM STRACHAN

IN HIS increasingly determined efforts to wriggle out of a manifesto pledge on campaign finance legislation, Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis has come up with a new line – that he is wary because public funds could be used to finance political campaigns.

Last week, he said: “If you chack and benchmark where campaign financing is the law in various countries, you’ll find that a part of the access to campaign financing is from the public purse. Should I put that on the payment people at this time? I don’t know.”

Now first thing first, Mr Davis knew the state of campaign finance laws around the world at the time he put the pledge on his party’s manifesto, and he knew about it when criticising then Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis when Mr Davis was in opposition – but we are going to gloss over that this week to look at the actual types of campaign finance legislation around the world.

There is a lot of talk here in The Bahamas about campaign finance reform – but frankly, we are not even at the stage of reform yet, we need the laws in the first place.

How important is such legislation? Well, Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations warned that “uncontrolled political finance threatens to hollow out democracy and rob it of its unique strengths”.

How does it do that? Well, you and me each have one vote, which should be of equal weight to a candidate. But if I give the candidate a million bucks as well, whose vote do you think is more attractive to them? If you do not know that I’ve put money in his pocket, you might wonder why they consistently choose to back my cause over yours. If you know, however, well then you can judge the candidate accordingly, and so can everyone else.

Over in the UK this week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has run into criticism over donations. There was a donation of corporate hospitality from Arsenal football club, the team he supports. Previously, he would sit in a seat he paid for as a season ticket holder, but took up the offer of a box seat with the argument that actually it was cheaper and less disruptive because of the security he now needed as prime minister. That was the start of the donations row he finds himself now embroiled in, with it also emerging that his clothes were also being funded – a peer in the House of Lords had given him glasses and clothes worth just shy of $25,000.

Are these donations that could sway the prime minister one way or another? That is up to people to decide, but the reason we knew about them is that there is a register of interests in Parliament, where members have to note down donations that they receive – be they in kind or in cash. The former prime minister, Rishi Sunak, got into some awkward discussions over his use of a helicopter he was allowed to use by a donor.

Over in the US, financing happens at the local, state and federal levels, and there are plenty of rules on who can donate and how much.

We are in the middle of election season in the US of course – and it is big money. In 2020, nearly $14 billion was spent on federal election campaigns, and this time around will probably be on that same path if not more.

We hear on the news regularly about legal challenges to try and find ways around the laws, we hear of Super PACs (Political Action Committees) and talks of “dark money” which is not disclosed to voters. The effort to get around the rules shows the impact of the rules if they are abided by. The fact that a quick search on Google shows up who the biggest donors are to US election campaigns shows that if the information is not quite complete, it is substantial enough that we can judge the level of influence exerted by wealthy individuals.

Similar rules appear around the world in many countries, with the focus on disclosure. But there are also rules about spending limits – and who can and cannot donate.

Some countries, for example, ban foreign individuals from donating to political campaigns. We have seen here in The Bahamas how that could be a negative influence, from Peter Nygard’s much-seen video about taking back The Bahamas.

Then there are rules in some countries about donations from certain businesses – countries such as Argentina and Honduras have had bans for organisations involved in gambling, Croatia bans corporations and individuals from making donations if they have a tax debt still to pay off, Germany bans donations made in expectation of a political advantage (though proving that is a challenge), Sierra Leone only allows registered voters to make contributions, and so on.

The idea of direct public funding of parties and campaigns is also one that has been explored elsewhere in the world. That idea is that public funding replaces donations, so that there is no undue influence from donors on the direction of the government. In Brazil and Mexico, for example, more than half of political parties’ revenues comes from public sources – 63 percent in Brazil, according to the OECD. However, oversight is key. There can also be unexpected side-effects of such funding – public campaign finance is often seen as a way of levelling the playing field, but there is evidence to suggest it helps extremist parties. Maybe that is levelling things for them – but it is an undesirable consequence.

Take a step back from all these measures, and it is clear the goal is to allow government to be conducted without undue influence, or with enough transparency so people can hold the government to account.

Around the world, there are different examples of how to do this – but us? We barely respect the one measure we do have of financial disclosures.

If country after country around the world see value in doing this, and we don’t, what does that say about us? Mr Davis has also talked of how there will always be loopholes – well, if he is writing the legislation, that is no encouragement to have faith in the administration’s competence.

If we choose – and it is a choice – not to give the public the right to see who is paying our political parties and the impact that may have on our government’s decisions, that is as clear a sign as any that such legislation is needed. We cannot keep having this cycle of being vocal in opposition calling for such measures then backing away from them in government. That will destroy public faith as sure as anything else.