More than a half of billion was spent on the parliamentary election campaign by parties. The highest amounts were traditionally spent on campaigning in mass media – more than 600 million UAH. Such official data is available in financial reports, submitted to the Central Election Commission (CEC) by parties.
On 25 November, the Central Election Commission (CEC) has approved the analysis of final financial reports on receipts and expenses from electoral funds of parties made during the early elections to the Parliament of Ukraine held on 26 October 2014. The total amount spent by all political parties is 674,470,350 UAH.
The top ten parties are: the AUU Batkivshchyna – 109,483,429 UAH; the Opposition Block – 106,396,169 UAH; the Petro Poroshenko Block – 97,347,782 UAH; the People's Front – 93,631,884 UAH; the Radical Party of Oleh Liashko – 73,228,723 UAH; the Strong Ukraine – 60,832,723 UAH; the AUU Svoboda – 38,313,837; the Samopomich – 27,342,011; the CPU – 23,385,488 UAH. Two parties failed to create their electoral funds: the Party of Greens of Ukraine, and the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists. Therefore, these two parties didn't have any expenses in their financial reports.
As for the expense categories, 606,618,229 UAH of total 674 million was spent on mass media advertising (over 563 million on TV broadcasting time; over 37 million on radio broadcasts; almost 6 million on campaign materials in printed mass media).
21,969,654 UAH was spent on creation of campaign materials; 19,609,090 UAH – on other services related to the election campaign (transportation, lease of premises, buildings, equipment for campaigning; production/lease of advertising billboards). Other expenses on the election campaign (placement of campaign materials on outdoor advertising boards, organization of concerts, exhibitions, sport contests or other public events in support of the certain candidate) – 26,273,377 UAH.
Financial reports of all parties besides the Right Sector were approved by the CEC without any remarks. As for the Right Sector, the analysis of the final report showed that anonymous donations were made to the electoral fund of the party, what is against the Article 50(1, 3) of the Law on Election of the People's Deputies of Ukraine. The party reported receipts in amount of 7,937.00 UAH (1,101.00 UAH donated anonymously and 6,836.00 by a legal entity). According to the Law, the party was supposed to return this money to the donors or transfer to the State Budget of Ukraine. At the same time, the expenses made by the Right Sector, according to the analysis made by the CEC, were made in correspondence with the Law.
As for the sources of electoral funds, eight parties used only party funds: the Petro Poroshenko Block, the Strong Ukraine, the AUU Svoboda, the Nova Polityka, the Ukraine of the Future, the Block of the Left Forces, the Syla i Chest, the National Democratic Party of Ukraine. Electoral funds of another five parties, on the contrary, contained only voluntary donations from natural persons: the Solidarity of Women of Ukraine, the Internet Party of Ukraine, the Vidrodzhennia, the United Ukraine, the Ukraine - United Country All-Ukrainian Political Union. It should be also mentioned that the electoral fund of the AUU Batkivshchyna contained 98.1% of voluntary donations from natural persons, and its total amount was the largest among all the other parties – 107 million UAH. Sources of party electoral funds were analyzed by:
Chernivtsi office of the Civil Network OPORA, which has also analyzed expenses of majoritarian candidates in Chernivtsi oblast.