Nothing is free on this earth. Even death carries a price, as it costs one’s life. Democracy, as we all know, is not perfect, but it is the best of all political systems that man has invented. Democracy, too, has a price. It makes governing difficult; it may slow down decision-making and it may engender dangerous populism. Democracy requires political parties and politicians. Both tend to range very low in the respect of the people. Most citizens regard political parties and politicians as necessary evils. But, whatever, the moral judgement, there can be no dispute that democracy cannot function without political parties and without politicians who are experienced in operating the institutions of the state.

The financing of political parties is one of the most difficult issues with which all democracies have to grapple. Different models have been implemented around the globe. On the one side, stand those who maintain that political life must be free of finances provided by the state. They prefer that political parties mobilise their funds entirely from private sources. On the other side, are those who maintain that without public funds, there can be no fair competition among different parties and that private funding leads to an inordinate influence of big money in politics. Different countries have adopted different models. While in Great Britain, public funds are limited to the payment of clearly defined expenses incurred by members of parliament, in Germany, political parties get substantial subsidies from the state. The size of these funds depends on the number of votes obtained in elections and on the size of the parliamentary representation. Public funding exists on all levels of political participation.

The German “model” is the envy of many politicians and party functionaries in other European countries. Nowhere can political parties count on so much revenue from the public purse and nowhere else in Europe do parties have such a strong influence on political life. It was the bad experience with extremism, which had led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic and to the rise of Hitler. These developments had motivated the fathers of the federal republic to create strong foundations for political pluralism in the new Germany. In Britain, the single-member constituency with the first past the post electoral system puts the individual candidate at the centre of electoral politics. In Germany, proportional representation and electoral lists give parties the decisive influence over who has the best chances for electoral success.

Both in Great Britain and in Germany, the existing system is not free of deficiencies. In recent years, the abuse of public funds by many British MPs from all political parties has come to light. All kinds of trickery were used to get compensations for personal expenses. It seems, that once elected, a good number of parliamentarians quickly forgot about idealism and selfless service to the country. In Germany too, the system is not immune from greed and financial manipulation. Although, the parties get generous endowments from the state coffers, in many instances, the temptation to top-up public funds with private donations from dubious sources has proven to be too big. Of course, the mother of all electoral feats, the presidential elections in the United States, demonstrates every four years, the vital importance of money for electoral success. The sums involved have reached gigantic proportions and there seem to be no limits for ever-new records in mobilising electoral funds.

There is one system, where political funding is no problem at all and where the cash flow is limitless. It carries the acronym CPC, Communist Party of China. Of course, the People’s Republic of China is no democracy and in a totalitarian one-party state, you do not need funds to fight elections. In spite of that, in China, too, the demand of politicians for funds is limitless. The CPC maintains a gigantic apparatus, which, as had been the case in the former Soviet Union, often duplicates functions of the state. Both on the national and provincial levels, the CPC maintains scores of staff. In addition, it provides for training of cadres and uses considerable funds for propaganda. All this cannot be financed by the meagre contributions of the simple members, even if they number some 70 million.

India is the world’s largest democracy. The Indian Union has a remarkable track record of free and fair elections on all levels of governance. At present, there are strident debates about the cancer of corruption. Indian taxpayers have woken up and demanded that corrupt officials and politicians be punished. The Indian media is doing a marvellous job in uncovering various scams. In the long run, however, corruption cannot be fought without putting in place a proper system of transparent party financing by private or public sources.

(The writer is the Far East correspondent of Swiss daily Neue Zurcher Zeitung)