On the 26th of September, 2014 the National Audit Office of Bulgaria and 4 civic organizations – Association “Transparency international”, the Institute for Public Environment Development, Association “Civic Initiative for Free and Democratic Elections” and the “Bulgarian Association for Free Elections and Civil Rights – National Association”, signed a Memorandum for partnership.
Through it, the National Audit Office and these 4 organizations are going to combine their efforts in order to improve the transparency and the public access to information for the funding mechanisms of the partisan electoral campaigns. The partners in the initiative will inform each-other about identified negative practices and trends in the sphere of the political funding, media representation etc. They will also popularize the good practices of funding, accounting and control over the electoral campaigns of the political parties, and if it is found necessary – they will conduct common campaigns aimed at the prevention of fraudulent practices.
According to Mrs. Lidya Roumenova (President of the National Audit Office in Bulgaria), the goal of the parthership is to create new opportunities for the National Audit Office to control the partizan funding, in complience with the competences given to the institution by the Electoral code. On the other side, the goal is to promote the civic control, trough the specific activity and research capabilities that NGOs can provide. The partners in the initiative consider the signed document as a good foundation for more transparency and prevention of the hidden finance mechanisms that can influence the elections.
You may review the signed document (in Bulgarian) from here.
