Although there are now many opportunities for social initiatives in Ukraine, parties prefer to spend their funds almost exclusively on advertising. The head of the legal service of the NGO “Committee of Voters of Ukraine” Svyatoslav Pikul stated this at a press conference in Kyiv.
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“We analyzed party reports for 2014, where parties provide data on their expenses. From them we subtracted the costs of contributions to the electoral fund for parliamentary elections and the costs of presidential elections (since such candidates as Yulia Tymoshenko and Oleg Lyashko used funds from the electoral funds of their parties for them). This is how we received the amounts that the parties did not spend on election campaigning. It turned out that these were quite insignificant amounts.
For example, the Popular Front party spent only 4,4% of its election fund on elections or campaigning over the past year. For the “Petro Poroshenko Bloc” this figure is even lower – 1,4%, etc.,” he said.
“Last year was difficult, and the parties could have used the funds for other activities - helping fighters and temporarily displaced people, rehabilitating the seriously wounded, etc. The possibilities for social initiatives were very great. Parties as volunteer organizations could take part in this process and actively spend money on it. After all, parties are created to implement their program, and elections are only one of the tools for its implementation,” says Svyatoslav Pikul.