Starting July 1, funding for domestic parties should begin from the state budget (read: from taxpayers' pockets).
The authors of the relevant law claim that this will eradicate political corruption and make parties independent from the purses of financial and political groups in the country.
The law on party financing was adopted in October 2015 and was a prerequisite for Ukraine gaining visa-free travel to the European Union. State funding itself is scheduled to begin on July 1, 2016, for which approximately 400 million hryvnias have already been allocated in the budget.
This time, funds from the state treasury will be awarded to parties that overcame the 5% threshold in the last parliamentary elections in 2014, depending on the number of votes received. Each vote is worth 2% of the minimum wage (currently 29 hryvnias). So, if a party received 3 million votes, it will receive 87 million hryvnias. In subsequent elections, funds will be awarded to parties that overcame the 2% threshold. The budget will finance both the parties' activities outside of elections and reimburse their campaign expenses.
The winners of the 2014 parliamentary elections, the People's Front and the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, will receive approximately 85 million hryvnias each. Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna party will receive the least—around 19 million, Mykola Spiridonov, an expert at the Ukrainian Institute of Analysis and Management, told KP in Ukraine (see the infographic for the full list of payments). He added that this won't impose a significant burden on taxpayers, but it won't solve the problem of political corruption.
"If there are approximately 25 million taxpayers in the country, then maintaining political parties would cost them approximately 16 hryvnias per person annually. This isn't a huge figure, but given the real underfunding of many other social budget items, these 400 million hryvnias per year could help healthcare or education," the political scientist believes.
At the same time, the expert believes that budgetary financing of parties will not solve the problem of political corruption.
"These budget funds don't even cover a fraction of the expenses of major political parties—they're simply not enough. This means they'll remain dependent on the same financial and political groups. But this could anger the population, because, according to the UN, 80% of our population lives below the poverty line," said Nikolai Spiridonov. And in such a situation, he believes, funding political parties from the budget won't yield any visible results.
Although party funding may not begin within the agreed timeframe.
"Starting July 1, the law will not take effect, and political parties will not be financed. Formally, it won't take effect because the law contains sufficient reference provisions that specify what and who must do to ensure these amendments are implemented," said Vice Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Oksana Syroid in early June. According to her, for the law to be implemented, the relevant decisions must be made by the National Anti-Corruption Agency, the Central Election Commission, the majority of whose members' terms have long since expired, and the Accounts Chamber, "which also has an illegitimate composition."
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