North Macedonia Parties Spend More Since State Pays Bill

Political parties in North Macedonia are spending more cash on electoral promotion since 2018, when the country started paying for the airing of their promotions on TV and radio stations and in newspapers and portals.

The rise becomes clear from a comparison of their spending during the 2016 general elections - when they had to pay from their own pockets - and the budgets for last year's presidential elections and this year's forthcoming early general elections, due in April.

In the 2016 elections, 12 parties and alliances reported spending a total of 2.5 million euros on "advertisements and propaganda".

By comparison, in last year's presidential elections, when the new rules applied, the parties spent 3.6 million euros for the same purposes - even though only three presidential candidates were competing, BIRN has found out.

This sum climbs to 3.8 million euros if the expenses of parallel local elections taking place in three municipalities are included.

This year, the sum envisaged for the early general elections in April 12 has soared, with the state envisaging spending 6.5 million euros on political advertisements.

The rise in spending stems from changes made in 2018 to the electoral code, which allow the State Electoral Commission to draw money from the national budget to cover parties' expenses for promotion and election propaganda.

The changes allow each party to spend up to 110 denars [about 1.80 euros] per registered voter in each of the six electoral districts.

As North Macedonia has almost 1.8 million registered voters, theoretically, each party or alliance can spend an average of just over 3 million euros from the budget during elections.

This does not mean the parties will spend all the 6.5 million...