49. IN PRACTICE: What proportion of total spending reported to the oversight agency in relation to the last campaign period was spent on media by the two presidential candidates gaining the most votes?
Kazakhstan
IX. CAMPAIGN FINANCE
According to the CEC, all three candidates submitted financial reports to the CEC within five days of the announcement of election results, meeting the legal deadline. While the campaign fund of President Nazarbayev was larger than that of the other candidates, none of the candidates reached the contribution or spending limits. No breaches of campaign rules were identified by the CEC. Article 34.4 of the Election Law requires the CEC to publish in the mass media information about the amount and sources of funding of each candidate within ten days of the announcement of election results. OSCE/ODIHR EOM media monitoring indicated that the information was not made readily available in media by this deadline. Once the information was posted on the CEC website it did not provide detailed information on the amount and source of campaign contributions or the amount and purpose of campaign expenditures.To enhance transparency, the Election Law could be amended to provide that detailed financial reports are made publicly available and posted on the CEC website.
According to the information on the CEC website: President Nazarbayev spent KZT 572 million, Mr. Sydykov 284 million and Mr. Kusainov 69 million. President Nazarbayev received 320 million from donations, and he invested in the campaign 106 million from his own resources. He was the only candidate that received funds from the party that nominated him, to the amount of KZT 150 million. Mr. Syzdykov’s election fund of KZT 283 million consisted solely of donations, while Mr. Kuzainov’s election fund amounted to KZT 69 million, 56 million of which were donations.
(OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission Final Report, Republic of Kazakhstan, Early Presidential Election, 26 April 2015, available at http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/kazakhstan/174811?download=true accessed January 2018).
