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7. A Perspective for Russia's Electoral System
As Russia prepares for the coming elections, it is realistic to assume that some amounts of «dirty money» will flow into campaign coffers. It is important to make attempts to limit such flows. But it is equally important to ensure that candidates who do not receive dirty money do not suffer too greatly from their honesty. One of the best ways to protect the interests of 'clean' candidates and parties is to ensure (a) that the laws provide a fair share of advertising, free political broadcasts and news coverage to rival political parties and candidates, and (b) to ensure that these laws are respected and implemented.
The strategy that is recommended is to make it a top priority to help those who are not criminals by safeguarding their rights to appear on television and radio. The second priority is to assure that illegal funding practices are publicized. The third priority - important, but nevertheless less important in the short term than the primary aims - is to attempt to convict those who use dirty campaign money.
(a) Ensuring fair play concerning coverage of candidates and political parties on television and radio.
Since the electronic media are among the most influential forms of political communications, it is vital to ensure that political coverage cannot be affected by black money. It may be possible to achieve in large measure this even if the owners of certain television stations are themselves political candidates (or are close to such candidates) or even if owners of television stations are suspected of having criminal connections.
The output of television and radio programs is by its very nature public. Provided that programs are regularly monitored, it will be impossible for a candidate or for the owner of a TV channel to disobey the rules without this being discovered. For this reason, TV and radio are amenable to regulation.
Three stages of regulation are needed. Each stage must be carried out sufficiently in advance of the election to permit remedies for problems and abuses. First, laws and rules must be enacted; they must set out principles for access to television by rival candidates and parties. Second, procedures must be prepared to ensure that the output of TV and radio is monitored and analyzed; methods to respond rapidly to problems must be prepared. Third, there is the implementation stage, which will occur in the final period before election day.
 Stage 1. Rules and regulations. Clear standards must be agreed in advance.
(1) The rules must set out the meaning of a 'fair' division of appearances. For instance, does 'fairness' mean that all candidates and all parties receive the same amount of time or does it mean that their time is based on their size and popularity ? If the latter principle is followed, should size be measured on the basis of proportion of the vote gained at the previous election? On the proportion of seats gained at the previous election? Or on some other basis?
Are similar principles about allocations of time to apply to news broadcasts as to free time for party political broadcasts or for paid advertisements ? What about the principles on which debates between rival presidential candidates can be held?
Should the same rules about fairness in political coverage during news broadcasts apply before the election campaign ? Or should there be especially tight rules of fairness during the weeks immediately before election day ?
In the event of disagreements between candidates and between parties about the fair allocation of broadcasting opportunities, how should disputes be resolved?
It will be evident that it is no easy task to draw up fair rules. However, it is essential that definitive decisions are made and publicized. It is only when the rules are clear that observers can decide whether the rules are being obeyed.
The rules should be defined at least six months before election day.
(2) Scope of the rules. There need to be rules for: (a) free broadcasts by parties and candidates, (b) paid advertising, (c) news broadcasts, (d) current affairs programs, (e) other programs likely to sway opinions of voters (such as certain programs about history or economics).
Stage 2. Making arrangements to ensure that the rules are monitored and obeyed.
This should probably take place between nine months and four months before the date of the election.
(1) Identifying geographical areas and television channels which seem likely to cause problems and whose political output needs special attention as far as monitoring is concerned.
(2) Making technical arrangements for monitoring output of selected TV and radio stations (for example, arrangements for use of video equipment).
(3) Making organizational arrangements for monitoring TV and broadcasting output. Recruiting volunteers or paid helpers. Training. Arrangements for reporting results to a central point.
(4) Arranging periodical (fortnightly?) meetings between members of the CEC and the main candidates and parties in order to discuss and to anticipate potential problems. (Such informal, cross-party meetings have proved valuable in a number of countries where electoral practices are potentially in dispute).
(5) Arranging methods of rapid response to problems. For example, arrangements for making reports to a central place about accusations against candidates which call for a right of reply. Arrangements for dealing with evidence of unbalanced coverage on a TV station's news casts.
Stage 3. Implementation of plans during weeks before the election.
(b) Monitoring and reporting patterns of campaign spending.
If certain candidates are benefiting from large financial contributions from hidden, dubious sources there are likely to be outward signs that they are doing so. Since the object of collecting political money is to use it to win public office, rich candidates and rich parties will usually display their wealth in ways which become obvious if their activities are monitored. By monitoring activities which require injections of money, and by publicizing the results, it should be possible to inform the voters about wealth of the opposing candidates and parties.
Monitoring of political spending may take two forms: (a) simply collecting newspaper reports about activities and expenditures. Press articles are frequently unreliable and reflect the political bias of journalists or of press proprietors. Nevertheless, such a collection may provide a helpful starting point, (b) It is possible to monitor specific campaign outputs - for instance, number of minutes of paid advertising on TV, number of pages of advertising in newspapers, number of advertisements on commercial billboards, size of campaign premises and estimated number of people employed at the premises, public address equipment used at political meetings, amount of political literature circulated, and so forth. This is an arduous method, but it is a good way to form initial judgements about relative levels of campaign expenditures.
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