The members of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) had a meeting with representatives of the National Bank of Moldova, of the Service for the Prevention and Combating of Money Laundering, as well as with representatives of commercial banks from the country.
The meeting was organized, at the initiative of the CEC, in order to establish inter-institutional collaborative relations and to ensure the transparency of the financing of political entities. One of the discussed subject was the identification and clarification of a balanced mechanism, which would ensure, on the one hand, the gathering and indication on the payment documents of all the information required by the electoral legislation, but also the observance of the minimum requirements regulated by the normative acts from banking or preventing and combating money laundering. Another topic was the identification of a solution to be applied by the commercial banks, in a fair way and without any discrimination, the obligation to open bank accounts for political parties and electoral competitors in elections.
CEC representatives noted that the electoral authority was notified, by at least four political parties, about the refusal of commercial banks to open bank accounts for them, a fact that prevents their ordinary activity. It was emphasized that "the legislation obliges each political party to open a special bank account, where all monetary contributions granted to it will be transferred, including donations and membership fees, and payments to political parties, electoral competitors can be made exclusively through bank transactions”. In the same way, the parties discussed the possible sanctions that can be applied for the infringement of the legislation on political financing, but also those that can occur in the case of the infringement of the legislation on the prevention and combating of money laundering or on reputation for banks that do not ensure an appropriate verification of the source of funds income of donors to political parties or electoral campaigns.
It should be noted that the Central Electoral Commission is the institution responsible for the supervision and control of the financing of political parties and electoral campaigns. For this purpose, the CEC collects and systematizes reports on the financial management of political parties, reports on the audit of political parties, reports on the financing of electoral campaigns presented by electoral competitors or participants in the referendum, and reports on the financing of initiative groups. On the other hand, commercial banks are the entities that must ensure the circulation of financial flows in accordance with the prudence and compliance criteria established by national and international standards in the financial-banking field to prevent and combat money laundering.