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The presidential elections that took place yesterday promise to be the cheapest since the campaign accounts are audited, and the candidate who came third, André Ventura, should receive the highest public subsidy.
The law provides for the allocation of a fixed amount to the different candidates, and then a value based on the electoral results, which initially places Marcelo as the candidate with the most funding. But the Law on Financing of Political Parties and Electoral Campaigns also says that “the subsidy cannot, in any case, exceed the amount of the expenses actually incurred.” That is, the candidates cannot receive more money from the public coffers than they spent on the electoral campaign.
Now, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa presented a budget that foresees 25 thousand euros in expenses. Ana Gomes, for her part, presented to the Constitutional Court a forecast of expenses of 53,500 thousand euros, while André Ventura’s budget foresees an amount of expenses of 160 thousand euros.
Under the law, presidential candidates are entitled to a public subsidy worth 10,000 times the value of the Social Support Index (IAS), currently at 438.81 euros, for a total amount of 4.3 million euros. This amount falls into a mandatory cut, the result of a 2017 law that imposed that “the amount of the public subsidy for electoral campaigns be definitively reduced by 20%.” With this decrease, the total subsidy to the presidential campaign is 3.5 million euros, as can be seen on the page of the National Electoral Commission.
To access this scholarship, candidates must exceed the 5% threshold, which, in the case of Sunday’s election results, excludes public funding for the candidacies of João Ferreira, Marisa Matias, Tiago Mayan Gonçalves and Vitorino Silva .
Three applications remain with the right to public funding: Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Ana Gomes and André Ventura. According to the law, these applications are divided 20% of the total amount of the subsidy between them, 234 thousand euros each. The remaining 80% (some 2.8 million) are “distributed in proportion to the electoral results.” That is, 60% for Marcelo (almost 1.7 million euros), 13% for Ana Gomes (365 thousand euros) and 12% for André Ventura (337 thousand euros).
But this is a notional value, as the grant only covers the expenses incurred. If the three applications do not involve a higher cost than the budgeted, they will receive a total of 238,500 euros of public funding.
There is nothing that prevents candidates from submitting more expenses than expected, it is quite common. In the case of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, it is not predictable, given that the now re-elected president did not have any campaign materials, did not even have a candidacy website and did not have airtime.
As for Ana Gomes, she would have to go far beyond her budget (by more than 100,000 euros) to reach the amount set by André Ventura.
The law states that campaigns cannot benefit from state support. The fact that they sometimes make a profit is because the state subsidy covers all expenses incurred, leaving applications with money from private donations. It happened five years ago with Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and António Sampaio da Nóvoa. Both donated the amount of the profits to social solidarity institutions.
Accounts made, and unless the increase in expenses compared to the budgeted amount is exponential, these will be the cheapest elections for the public coffers since the campaigns are audited, a fact that is not alien to the current pandemic situation, which limited the electoral campaign . to lows never seen before. The campaign was already the cheapest compared to the amounts budgeted by the seven candidates who stood in the elections and to this is added the fact that the two candidates with the largest budgets – João Ferreira, who planned to spend 450 thousand euros, and Marisa Matias, with a budget of 256 thousand euros – they have run out of subsidies.
Five years ago, the presidential candidates presented much higher budgets: Edgar Silva with 750,000 euros, Sampaio da Nóvoa with 742,000, Maria de Belém with 650,000, Marisa Matias with 454,700, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa with 157,000 and Vitorino Silva with 50,000.
