New transparency rules: this is how much your politician spends on the election campaign

class=”sc-29f61514-0 icZBHN”>

365,000 francs – that’s how much Donato Scognamiglio (53) spent on his election campaign. The real estate expert wants to become a member of the National Council for the EPP and has the largest budget of all candidates. At least that is evident from the database published by the Swiss Federal Audit Office (SFAO).

New rules for political financing have come into effect this year. Anyone who spends more than R50,000 on the National Council election campaign must report it. The population must know what politics costs – and who pays for it.

At Scognamiglio it is he who finances it. He can afford it too: Scognamiglio recently sold his real estate analytics company Iazi. How much money remains his secret.

Silberschmidt collected 280,000 francs

Other politicians, however, depend on donations. The FDP councilor Andri Silberschmidt (29) is the record collector of donations: he does not spend any money on his election campaign – his entire budget of no less than 280,000 francs comes from donations.

According to the EFK database, Silberschmidt does not have a major donor: donations above 15,000 francs must be shown separately. Name the donor. Green National Councilor Katharina Prelicz-Huber (63) stated that she received 20,000 from her mother.

There are still dark spots

Center State Councilor Elisabeth Schneider-Schneiter (59) received 20,000 francs from the Basel Raiffeisenbank, of which she chairs the board of directors. However, it remains unclear where the remaining 120,000 francs that Schneider-Schneiter received in donations came from. These came from the “Foundation for Sensible Politics” – which, however, only aims to support the political work of the Basel bidder.

This shows that the new transparency in political financing does not yet provide a clear picture. There are dark spots in the system: the disclosure obligation for major donors can easily be circumvented by splitting up amounts above 15,000 francs and using front men. And major donors only need to be listed if they donated in the context of a clearly defined election or voting campaign. But if they support a party or a politician in general, they can remain in the dark – as is the case with the “Foundation for Civil Politics”, a financing vehicle for SVP campaigns.

This is what your politician says

It is up to the Federal Audit Office to shed light on these dark spots. And the accountants around EFK boss Pascal Stirnimann (50), who exposed the Postbus scam, have already proven several times that they can shed light on the matter.

Blick has processed the EFK data. This makes it easy to see how much money the previous National Council members spent on their election campaign and what parties and associations spent. (sf)

Source:Blick