Judging by 2005 party accounts, LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky makes a lot less than might be assumed.
Photo: Dmitry Saltykovsky
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United Russia Makes a Billion
// Central Elections Commission reveals parties' finances
The Central Elections Commission of the Russian Federation made public the 2005 financial statements of political parties yesterday. No financial misconduct was found in them. Under the law “On Political Parties,” parties make their accounts to the Central Elections Commission this year instead of to tax bodies. Not surprisingly, United Russia is the richest of the Russian political parties. Of 1.77 billion rubles received by all 36 parties, more than 1 billion went to United Russia. All remaining parties lagged far behind it in income, with 16 parties receiving between 1 million and 20 million rubles, and five parties not receiving or spending anything.
United Russia owns 98 automobiles and an office in Moscow worth 127 million rubles, while the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia owns five automobiles and no real estate. Eleven parties, including Democracy, Patriots of Russia, and the Russian Renaissance Party, own no property. Irregularity in financial accounts is cause to liquidate a party. According to Central Elections Commission chairman Alexander Veshnyakov, the commission can turn in information to the Federal Registration Service, which can initiate court proceedings against an offending party.
Commission member Evgeny Kolyushin, who monitors party funding, told Kommersant that there are “issues of the depth of the audit.” For instance, the parties may receive money from noncommercial organizations (United Russia received money from 8 NCOs), and noncommercial organizations may receive money from abroad, but the law prohibits parties from accepting money from abroad. Deputy chairman of the commission Oleg Velyashev said that special attention was paid to relations with NCOs in the last quarterly report (which also went to the commission), but no far-reaching conclusions were drawn.
Irina Nagornykh
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 25, 2006
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