 The
Central Electoral Commission and the Bank of Russia have released the financial
results of the State Duma elections. It turned out that the SPS, which
failed to make it into the Duma, spent the most on its electoral campaign.
The liberals invested most in TV and press commercials and United Russia
in collecting signatures, while the Liberal Democrats saved almost 14 roubles
for the State budget.
On January 26 the Central Electoral Commission of Russia published
the final financial reports of the parties that participated in the State
Duma polls. The report reads that the overwhelming winner – United
Russia - spent most of its funds on collecting signatures, the SPS bought
expensive TV air time and the Liberal Democratic Party chose to save money
by not holding any rallies and publishing very little in the press.
United Russia's spending was considerable - their campaign cost 226,
885, 262 roubles, but here the winners were outstripped by the SPS who
spent 227,731,000 roubles.
Not that the pro-Kremlin bloc was short of money - at the beginning
of the State Duma electoral campaign they had almost 252 million on their
accounts, but after some minor violations were found they returned 24.5
million roubles to their sponsors. The rightists spent everything they
had and still fared poorly.
Yabloko, another democratic party that failed to make it to the lower
house, spent 162 million roubles. The Motherland bloc spent all their
159 million roubles. The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia spent 139.5
million roubles and the Communist Party spent just 76 million roubles.
United Russia spent most on collecting signatures, a procedure every
party had to carry out to prove their public support and to allow them
to campaign as a political bloc. As a result, United Russia paid about
1.8 million roubles for the organization and carrying out the campaign
to prove their support.
The other parties mostly used the work of their own activists for this
task. The closest to the 'bears' (the nickname and emblem of United Russia)
were the Communists with a really small sum of 279,000 roubles. Yabloko
acted in an unusually honest way and spent just 10,000 roubles for the
organisation of the process while paying 20 times more to the collectors
themselves. In other parties the situation was the opposite. The SPS was
the most ‘efficient’ of all the political movements, spending
about 7,500 roubles to organise the process and paying nothing to the
collectors.
Advertising took up the largest part in all the parties' budgets. United
Russia (which appeared in numerous TV programs during the pre-election
period, especially on the State-run channels) spent 95 million roubles
on TV commercials – a hefty sum if compared to the Communists’
26 million or Yabloko’s 35 million.
But the advertising budget of the Union of Right-Wing Forces, with their
famous clip featuring co-chairpersons Nemtsov, Chubais and Khakamada flying
in a private jet, was the most expensive, topping 117 million roubles.
Liberal Democrat Vladimir Zhirinovsky paid 111 million for his televised
addresses in which he promised to imprison virtually everyone.
It must be noted that judging from the accounting documents, the Liberal
Democrats’ was an unorthodox campaign. The party spent only 314.5
million on adverts in the paper press (compared to 11.5 million spent
by United Russia; 9.5 million by the Communists, and about 7 million by
each of the liberal blocs). And the party spent nothing on public rallies
and addresses while the others spent from 471,000 (Yabloko) to over 6.5
million (United Russia). The Liberal Democrats spent no money at all on
information and consulting services. After the campaign was over, they
even had some money remaining on their account - 13 roubles 57 kopeks,
which, by law, will be transferred to the State Budget. The other parties
spent all of their funds.
See also:
Elections to the State
Duma, 2003
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