Advertising, rent, consultations: what Ukrainian parties spent money on and who financed them

Analysts have investigated who financed Ukrainian political parties in the second quarter of 2024 and what they spent the most money on.

This was reported by Chesno.

In the second quarter of this year, Ukrainian political parties raised a little over UAH 4 million to support their activities, excluding state funding for parliamentary parties.

Only the Batkivshchyna party managed to raise more than a million hryvnias. No other parliamentary party was in the top 10 in terms of contributions, which shows that parties that had a lot of support five years ago now hardly engage in fundraising, relying on budgetary funds.

Small political forces are forced to look for alternative sources of funding. Only Narodovladstvo and Democratic Ax have been able to attract hundreds of contributions, while others receive mostly large one-time payments.

Over the three months, only 33 political parties received contributions, not including state funding and sponsorship in the form of services or goods. "Batkivshchyna collected the most - almost 1.5 million hryvnias, UDAR - about 700 thousand, and Cherkashchany - over 280 thousand hryvnias. However, in terms of the number of contributions, the leaders are Narodovladstvo with over 470 contributions and Democratic Ax with 118 contributions.

"Batkivshchyna" mostly received contributions to the accounts of local branches, in particular from donors associated with the party. The largest contribution of over UAH 200,000 was made by Natalia Sandul, a member of the Vinnytsia Regional Council. Other party members and their assistants also provided financial support.

The UDAR party continues to receive funding from the managers of Alekseev, Boyarchukov and Partners. Rostyslav Sachok and Alyona Mostypanska donated over 500 thousand hryvnias. One of the founders of this company, Serhiy Alekseev, is a member of the European Solidarity party.

The party "Cherkashchany" was mostly financed by legal entities. Although the contributions were relatively small - 10-15 thousand hryvnias - the party raised more money than some parliamentary forces.

Interestingly, "Servant of the People", "European Solidarity", and "Voice" were not among the top 10 parties in terms of contributions. "Servant of the People collected only 80 thousand hryvnias, European Solidarity - more than 40 thousand, and Voice - less than 5 thousand hryvnias.

Despite the smaller amounts of contributions, parliamentary parties spend more due to state funding.

For example, "Servant of the People" spent 131 million hryvnias, of which 83 million came from the state budget, and "Voice" spent 24 million hryvnias. The funds were used mainly to finance regional branches, salaries of employees, and administrative support of the parties' activities.

In general, the expenses of the parliamentary parties were related to advertising campaigns, office rent, consultations, and various events.

Over the two convocations of the Verkhovna Rada, nine political parties received state funding. An analysis of the expenditures of these parties in the period from 2016 to 2023 revealed differences in approaches to the selection of contractors between the old and new parties represented in the VIII and IX convocations.

YouControl R&D Center analysts also studied the reports of parliamentary parties that received state funding worth over UAH 885 million in 2022 and UAH 753 million in 2023. The experts analyzed the data from the Unified State Register of Political Party Reports of four political forces in 2022-2023 that passed the 5% threshold in the Verkhovna Rada: "Servant of the People", "European Solidarity", "Batkivshchyna", and "GOLOS".

In April 2023, the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) resumed exercising state control over the finances of political parties. As the NAPC reminded, the obligation of parties to submit reports on property, income, expenses and financial liabilities has been suspended for three years in Ukraine and the agency has not been able to verify them for a year

Анна Бальчінос