After 20 years in which Portuguese citizens have been able to consult the identities of donors to political parties and electoral campaigns, this information is suddenly being ‘locked up tight’.
The decision, taken by the Political Accounts and Financing Authority, follows an ‘opinion’ requested from the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents (CADA), whose members are predominantly appointed by members of parliament, and by the government (both national and of the autonomous regions).
In other words, the opinion of political ‘picks’ was sought – and they have ruled that they can see no reason for the general public to know who is funding political parties.
Put like that, it is easy to see why certain expert sources are cited as viewing this change “toxic for democracy”.
CNN Portugal, for example, explains that one of the signatories of the CADA opinion was former PSD leader José Silvano, who was appointed to CADA by Luís Montenegro’s government.
Even people with short memories will recall that Mr Montenegro has just been in a long tussle with ‘authorities’ over revealing the identities of the clients of his family business. The prime minister has a very particular opinion on what information he believes the general public should be privy to. It was not shared by the courts, and thus after months of prevaricating, the identities were ‘revealed’.
CADA meantime has explained its reasoning: “linking a donation to a specific political party or candidate is, as a rule, likely to reveal, directly or indirectly, the donor’s political opinions or beliefs, and thus constitutes a special category of data that is particularly sensitive”, which must be protected by law, in particular the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
CNN adds that the CADA opinion does suggest that donor lists could be consulted “following the prior removal of personal data that identifies or makes identifiable the donors of financial support, whilst information without direct or indirect identifiers, such as the individual amounts of donations without identification of the respective donor, may be retained where proportionate and useful”.
Bizarrely, political parties from right to left supported the need for the CADA opinion. CHEGA, for example, refused to reveal the identity of a €29,000 donation in 2020, writes Observador – adding that the same went for the Left Bloc and CDU/ PCP communists.
This year, Observador adds, the ceiling for donations by individuals to political parties is €13,425; €32,227 for an electoral campaign.
Source: CNN Portugal/ Observador
