BIRN Albania has released a comprehensive analysis of the financial declarations of mayoral candidates during the 2023 local elections in Albania, highlighting critical gaps in transparency, compliance and accountability in electoral campaign financing.
The alternative report, “Analysis of the Financial Reports of Candidates for Local Government Units on the 2023 Election Campaign,” is crucial to understanding the financial integrity of political campaigns, identifying systemic weaknesses in financial disclosures and proposing key reforms to improve oversight.
This report builds on BIRN Albania’s previous publication on the financial reports of political subjects in the May 14, 2023 local elections, which provided a detailed analysis of campaign financing, sources of public and private funds and the spending patterns of political parties.
This new report serves as a complementary analysis, with a specific focus on the financial declarations submitted by mayoral candidates, who often manage and spend significant amounts of funds independently for their campaigns. In some cases, candidates’ personal funds or third-party contributions play a decisive role in shaping the campaign, affecting electoral competition, fairness among candidates, and the possibility of external influences on local governance.
Understanding how candidates manage their finances, both in relation to their respective political parties and as independent actors, is crucial to assessing transparency, discrepancies and potential irregularities in the financing process.
This report aims to:
- Promote Transparency: The report provides detailed insights into campaign revenues, expenditures and donor contributions, shedding light on how electoral funds are raised and spent.
- Reveal Discrepancies: Differences were found between candidate-reported finances and official audit figures, raising concerns about hidden campaign funding and regulatory inefficiencies.
- Expose Cash Dependency: With 42.49 per cent of campaign expenditures conducted in cash, the report highlights the risks of untraceable transactions, financial misreporting, and potential election finance violations.
- Underreporting in Political Ads: Social media campaign financing was significantly underreported, despite independent data indicating higher actual expenditures on platforms like Facebook and Google.
This report is intended to assist journalists, experts and stakeholders in accessing open and transparent data on political party finances, as well as to facilitate further analysis of electoral campaign costs in the country.
The financial data declared by electoral subjects and candidates will enable various domestic observer groups to validate their findings from on-the-ground monitoring and compare financial reports with publicly available data declared by the media and other credible sources on political parties’ revenues and expenditures.
Furthermore, the findings of this report aim to encourage the Central Election Commission (CEC) and other stakeholders to improve the electoral financial reporting system, the auditing process and the enforcement of sanctions in cases where reporting issues are identified.
Access the Full Report: