Prime Minister issues decision specifying sources of financing electoral campaigns

Shura Council

HE Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al-Thani issued a decision specifying the sources of financing electoral campaigns and the controls and procedures for supervising it. The decision stipulates that the maximum expenditure of each candidate on electoral campaigns shall be two million riyals, and that each candidate may finance his electoral campaign with his own money or with cash or in-kind donations he receives from Qatari natural persons, provided that the total of these donations does not exceed 35 percent of the maximum limit stipulated in the previous article. The candidate must notify the committee (the committee for monitoring expenditure on electoral advertising) of the names of the persons from whom he received a donation and the amount of the donation. Under the decision, it is prohibited for any candidate to receive any contributions or support to finance spending on his electoral campaign from foreign or unknown sources, from a Qatari legal person, from a foreign natural or legal person, from a foreign entity, from a state or an international organization, or from an entity that a Qatari or foreign person contributes to its capital, natural or legal, regardless of its legal form. The decision required each candidate twenty-four hours before the start of the electoral campaign to deposit all private funds and cash donations, which he received to finance his electoral campaign, in a bank account opened for this purpose in one of the national banks determined by the committee. It is prohibited to spend on it from any source other than this account.