In Central American countries,
not a single criminal or
electoral sanction has ever
been meted out to anyone.
a rough estimate of the cost of the
2006 general election was $2.5 billion, according to Brazilian expert
Bruno Speck.
11 Sums spent in small
countries are often higher, proportionally speaking. The current president of Panama, Ricardo Martinelli,
a wealthy businessman, spent $19
million in his campaign, a remarkable figure in a country with barely 2 million registered
voters.
12 Competitive elections, in other words, offer terrific opportunities for crime syndicates hoping to make
political investments.
electoral funds from a state-run company, which were
not reported to authorities. This is, by a huge margin,
a world record.
Lax Enforcement
While Latin Americancountrieshavemade significant strides toward regulating campaign finance, the enforcement of these rules continues to be extremely weak.
13 With the exception of El Salvador, for instance, every country has either banned
certain kinds of political funding or introduced contribution limits. Likewise, in nearly every Latin American country (El Salvador is the exception again) parties
must submit regular financial reports to the electoral
authorities, an obligation that also covers candidates
in several countries including Brazil, Colombia, Chile,
Panama, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Moreover, fines (in
all countries, except El Salvador, Guatemala and the
Dominican Republic) and penal sanctions (in 7 out of
18 countries) have been introduced to back up existing political finance controls. Yet, more often than not,
these regulations are honored in the breach. The comprehensive controls introduced in Argentina in 2002,
for instance, lost all credibility when 10 days before the
2003 presidential election the leading candidate and
eventual winner reported, without any adverse consequence, that his campaign expenses amounted to one
peso.
14 In Central American countries, despite numerous
blatant violations of political finance laws, not a single
criminal or electoral sanction has ever been meted out
to anyone.
15 Mexico stands out as the only regional example in which a powerful electoral authority has made
a genuine effort to enforce campaign finance laws, in
some cases with extraordinary severity.
Indeed, in the wake of Mexico’s 2000 election, the
Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) was fined $100
million by the electoral authority for having received
Decentralization
The region-wide trend toward political decentral- ization is facilitating the penetration of orga- nized crime. On the one hand, decentralization processes open up new arenas of electoral compe- tition that add to the cost of politics. Very often,
these new layers of competition are outside the scope
of the already lax campaign finance controls that operate at the national level. On the other hand, the devolution of significant powers, even police powers, to local
authorities creates an obvious incentive for the intervention of organized crime.
Even in small countries, co-opting national institutions—through campaign contributions, bribes or the
threat of violence—is a much more difficult, expensive and conspicuous option for drug traffickers than
securing the co-operation of local authorities. Besides,
the latter are often the ones endowed with the power
to disturb or shield criminal activities in a particular locale. The experience of Colombia, where a vigorous decentralization process has taken place since the 1980s,
is particularly relevant. In that case, since 2006, over 80
national congresspeople have been investigated for ties
to paramilitary groups. Penetration of violent criminal
gangs is even more pervasive at the local level.
Weak Party Systems
The weakness of parties and party systems throughout the region also has troubling fi- nancial implications. The dearth of fee-paying party members and the modest amounts avail- able to candidates from most systems of public election funding in Latin America leave parties and
their candidates heavily dependent on their ability to
