Progressive Radio Network
An international commission led by former UN chief Kofi Annan warns that the world’s democracies, and the United States specifically, are being corrupted by the increasingly strong role of “uncontrolled, undisclosed, illegal and opaque” financing of political campaigns.
The report by the commission, staffed with former world leaders and Nobel prize laureates, stipulated that powerful financial institutions and the surging influence of money in politics was harmful to both emerging and more developed democracies across the globe. “The rise uncontrolled political finance,” warned the report, “threatens to hollow out democracy everywhere and rob democracy of its unique strengths”.
The Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security is presenting its finding today in London.
Regarding elections in the US, the commission’s report, Deepening Democracy: a Strategy for Improving the Integrity of Elections Worldwide, took special issue with the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizens United case.
Citizens United has “undermined political equality, weakened transparency of the electoral process and shaken citizen confidence in America’s political institutions and elections”, the report said.
According to the Guardian, the report criticizes individual states “which have sought to introduce voter identification laws and other measures that have the effect of suppressing African American participation in the political process.”
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