Transparency International’s Madagascar office has presented this Friday a charter of integrity that brings together ten requirements to provide greater transparency in the financing of political parties and candidates by companies to avoid the demand for quid pro quo and the «capture of the State by private interests».
The executive director of Transparency International in the country’s capital, Antananarivo, Ketakandriana Rafitoson has emphasized that despite being a legal practice, it deserves to be framed with greater transparency, since the studies carried out since 2021 show the opacity in electoral financing on the island, according to Radio France International.
«Among our findings is the fact that in Madagascar there are private investors or economic operators who finance certain candidates for elections and subsequently demand counterparts which can harm the general interest, since in the end it is these sponsors of our politicians who end up managing the affairs of the country. So we do not want this pattern to repeat itself in the future,» he said.
«Even if the law authorizes the fact that a company can financially help a politician, we would still like to know how much a company will invest in the politician, for what quid pro quo and why a politician is interested in a certain company. The public, the voters have a right to know,» he demanded in the brief.
In this letter, the companies commit themselves in particular to communicate their collaborations with the candidates, to denounce any attempt to pressure and intimidate them and to adopt a clear policy of limiting the financing of political parties.
In addition, the companies that sign the communiqué will be subject to monitoring by a joint committee made up of social organizations and state institutions to oversee transparency in these processes, with presidential elections on the horizon for the end of 2023.
