Candidates' Election Funds: 2019 vs 2022

An Orda.kz correspondent examined the 2019 and 2022 election fund budgets.

The correspondent discovered that Toqayev's election campaign budget has grown, but the finances of other candidates have shrunk.

An election fund is a temporary earmarked fund established in accordance with the procedure established by national legislation to finance an election campaign. The electoral fund's sources are candidates' personal funds, funds of parties or electoral associations, as well as voluntary donations from citizens.

The current leader in the amount of electoral funding is Qasym-Jomart Toqayev. He also led in this category three years ago. He has managed to collect a total of 1.6 billion KZT.

The budgets of the other candidates, however, are much more modest — their average budget is only 166 million KZT. Such funds may not be sufficient to conduct campaigning by expensive methods, for example, through television broadcasts.

2019 presidential candidates aside from Toqayev invested much more money than this year. Their average budget was about 293 million KZT.

Candidates mainly spend money on the production and/or distribution of printed, audiovisual and other campaign materials. Toqayev has already spent 228 million KZT on this. All candidates, except Zhiguli Dairabayev, spent funds on "making printed materials for free distribution, as well as other signs and symbols specially made for the election campaign."

Toqayev, as of November third, directed a quarter of his expenses (228 million KZT) to media appearances. He has paid about 140 million KZT for legal entities and individuals to organize promotional campaigning work.

Almost half of Zhiguli Dairabayev's expenses were spent on organizing and holding public election events. At the same time, some candidates decided not to bother with this expense. Karakat Abden, Saltanat Tursynbekova and Nurlan Auesbayev have spent nothing on this.

Compared to 2019, Toqayev's election fund has grown by almost half a billion KZT, while the average budget of other candidates has halved.

At the same time, in 2019 and in 2022, Toqayev's election fund consisted of exactly 45% of his own funds and finances allocated to him by the organization that nominated him, and 55% of voluntary donations.

Original Author: Ainura Akhanova