Sanction model changed
When presenting the project to sanction political parties for committing various irregularities in the verification of campaign expenses, electoral counselor Jorge Montaño stated that a total amount of fines of 785.6 million pesos was estimated.
However, he warned that this amount would be modified once the Technical Unit for Oversight corrects some errors detected and according to the votes in the general session of the INE.
“The final figures will be announced once the Technical Inspection Unit has identified all these errors and addenda and the respective increases have been made, which will be notified to the obligated subjects for the relevant purposes,” he said.
Among the political parties’ conduct to be sanctioned are unreported expenditures, improper apportionment, unverified expenditures and failure to submit any of the campaign reports in the established periods.
Furthermore, Councillor Montaño stressed that in this oversight exercise, the parties continued to fail to allocate at least 50% of their public campaign financing and radio and television space to candidates headed by women. Therefore, these facts were reported to the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Electoral Crimes.
“I have the impression that this failure to comply undermines women’s right to actively participate in political life,” she said.
Another reason why the amount of fines will be lower is that the INE advisors considered it prudent to sanction unreported campaign expenses with 100% of the observed amount, a criterion used in the 2018 and 2021 elections, and not with 150%, as established by the new oversight rules.
Montaño proposed that, in order to be consistent with these criteria, fines for unproven expenses by the parties be calculated at 50% of the observed amount and not 100%.
Councillor Carla Humprey also proposed to return the penalties for unproven expenses to 50%. “In light of the consistency that we must have with the seriousness of the offence, which is much more serious than unreported income,” she said.
According to Councillor Dania Ravel, this is not the first time that the criteria for oversight have been modified and she supported the decision to reduce the percentage applied to calculate the sanctions for the parties.
“I am consistent with this criterion, that without support, unreported expenditure should be penalized with only 100% and not 150% of the amount involved,” he explained.
However, Councillor Claudia Zavala considered that political parties are repeat offenders in irregularities when it comes to verifying their campaign expenses, so she was against changing the criteria and reducing the percentage to calculate the sanction.
“From my point of view, the appropriate thing to do is to apply the recidivism to all political parties,” he proposed.
