You're reading: Official: Parliamentary elections in 2012 to be more expensive than that in 2007

The current election campaign will cost more than the parliamentary elections in 2007, Chairman of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU) Oleksandr Chernenko has said.

“If we summarize the costs of parties and candidates for majority constituencies, of course, the sum will be bigger than in 2007,” Chernenko told a press conference on Friday.

He noted that at the early parliamentary elections “the parties spent their budgets on themselves” as the elections were held according to the proportional voting system.

“Compared to the previous elections in 2007, I think that the party costs were cheaper, as they did not nominate candidates for majority constituencies at that time, and the whole party budget was spent on the party, there were many parties, the election threshold was 3% and it was easier to overcome it, and the parties could spend more on themselves,” he said.

“Today, the lion’s share of funds that will be transferred from offshore accounts and will be used here, in Ukraine, will be spent by candidates for majority constituencies. That’s why we are saying that in each of the 225 constituencies two or three or even more candidates are ready to spend at least $1 million, and there are candidates that could pay even $5 million, so around $1 billion will be invested in this campaign,” Chernenko said.

According to him, the main problem of the upcoming elections could be the bribing of voters. Voters have already started receiving packages with food and services, children’s playing grounds are being equipped on behalf of charitable foundations named after candidates.

However, the candidates are not included on the supervisory boards of such foundations, thus, in fact no legal violations occur.