You're reading: Media: Parties report to CEC on election costs

The Central Election Commission of Ukraine (CEC) has finished accepting reports on the use of election funds from the parties that ran for the parliament, reads an article in the Thursday issue of the Kommersant Ukraine newspaper.

The article says that the newspaper has consolidated reports from
nine parties, including that of the Svoboda All-Ukrainian Union, which
passed the 5% threshold to win seats at the parliamentary elections.

The article reads that Svoboda spent Hr 23.2 million on its election campaign.

“Advertizing usually costs round amounts, so we had to add to the
fund to cover the campaign. Our fund received money from two sources –
citizens’ contributions and targeted transfers from the party’s budget.
When we realized that the raised funds were not enough, we transferred
the lacking sum from the party’s account,” member of Svoboda’s political
council Yuriy Syrotiuk, who signed the report of the party, said.

In particular, the party spend most of its funds on “the use of the media” – Hr 17,390,446, according to Kommersant Ukraine.

Considering that 2,129,933 of voters supported Svoboda, each vote
cost the party Hr 10.89. Thus, Svoboda may be the most economical party
among the political forces that passed to the parliament at the 2012
parliamentary elections.

The Radical Party, led by Oleh Liashko, declared a rather small cost
for its parliamentary campaign. It spent almost Hr 6 million, and took
eighth place with 1.08% of votes.

The cheapest election campaign was held by the Ukraine of the Future
Party, which did not spend a kopeck on campaigning and did not even have
a pre-election fund. However, the party managed to take the 15th of 21
places and received 0.18% of votes, which means that 37,909 people cast
their ballots for the party.

The official exchange rate of the hryvnia on November 15 is Hr 7.993/$1.