For several decades, there has been a discussion about the fact that elections have become expensive in Nepal. Due to increasing costs, more than 100 parties, fierce competition between candidates and the responsibility to pay attention to strong management, on the one hand, the state's election management and administration expenses seem to have increased excessively, while on the other hand, it is widely heard that the candidates have spent unaccountably personally.

Which is also shown by the reports of many recent election observers and other studies. There is a comment in the society that money is a game from the selection of candidates to the pre-incumbency. Elections cannot be won without spending. It has become a situation where elected officials focus on meeting election expenses and getting more than official responsibilities.

It is ultimately directly-indirectly connected not only to internal democracy, good governance, transparency and accountability within the parties, but also to state management, integrity and regularity of the government. As a result, it seems that the right of citizens to compete in politics and the system of proportional participation guaranteed by the constitution cannot be adopted in the true sense.

Some established leaders are saying that politics is becoming very dirty and it is not possible to survive in politics by being clean, and even some established leaders are saying that they will not contest the elections, and they are suggesting that people should be aware and aware that there is a need for reform in the current system and process. Political parties, civil society and policy makers are under immense pressure. As a result of the

, the National Election Commission is said to be practicing some remedial methods for its diagnosis and is discussing opinions with stakeholders. But some alternatives have emerged in media and political circles, one of the most highly anticipated and easily agreed-upon options is to fund the parties' election campaigns from state funds or encourage private donors. This article is prepared with a focus on that background. Even though the unit of public financing (state or public funding) is a new subject for Nepal, many countries of the world have already put it into practice. It seems that the arrangement of parties receiving subsidies from the state fund, which started in Costa Rica and Uruguay in the middle of the twentieth century, i.e. in 1954, has progressed through West Germany (1959), Cuba (1963), Sweden (1965), Finland (1967), Israel (1969).

Norway (1970), Canada (1974), Italy (1974), USA (1974), UK (1975) and Austria adopted it in 1975. In the 1990s, Australia (1984), Denmark (1986), France (1988), Belgium (1989) accepted it, but Japan (1994), Iceland (1997), the Netherlands (1999) and New Zealand (2010) are among the countries with new and different experiences in this regard. In the meantime, after nearly half a century of practice and experience, in February 2014, Italy has already abolished this system.

In countries that have a history of providing financial support to parties in the election campaign, there is no consensus and uniform practice and experience on what it is, how it can be received and spent, where and how it is accounted for. In addition, as many countries as have such arrangements, most of them seem to work in places and societies where the moral and social character of self-regulation has been developed. For example, in the new democracies of Central Europe, including Germany, a large part of party and election mobilization comes from such financing.

Looking at the source of the party's income in Germany, at least 40 and at most 70 percent, and there any party that gets 0.5 percent of the vote gets to share in such subsidies. In Slovakia, the party's only source of income is said to be public funding. But in general, more than 80 percent of the resources of the parties in Finland are state subsidies, while in Sweden, 47.1 percent, 45 percent in Norway, and 25.1 percent in Austria, it is only a source of party income.

In the case of private donors, private donors do not become a source of party income in Russia, as allies seek returns on investment and may in the long run take unfair advantage of politics. Studies have shown that the experience of Indonesia and Turkey cannot prove the argument that public financing of parties will reduce wrongdoing. 

Looking at the experience of some African countries, it was seen that only on the basis of the capacity and quantity of the state that can provide and arrange such resources, the election will have a comparative effect on the meaning of transparency and cleanliness. The experience of some countries has shown that rather than providing direct financial funds to the party, by reducing or cutting taxes on its income sources or by exempting or reducing the party's donor's tax, media free or discounts are also provided.

Due to the provision that parties can take election expenses from private and businessmen, the network of political parties has been established in Indonesia with industrialists and businessmen, as a result national politics and economy have been hijacked and an elite class has been created through improper financing. In most of the democratic countries, the party representatives raise resources for party expenses by giving a certain percentage of salary to the party.

In countries like Botswana, Lesotho, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe, the amount given by the party's elected representative as a certain percentage of his salary is considered the main part of the party's resources. Again, such collection is illegal in Brazil, but in France and Italy members of parliament pay 22.9 percent of their salaries to their parties.

Moreover, the party's internal resources, membership fees paid by the party's functionaries, etc. are becoming resources for the parties in every country. Even in countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and Ireland where subsidies are available from state sources, parties' main source of income comes from party membership fees, accounting for more than a third. There have also been many examples of private resources being spent on parties affecting the leadership.

Such fund-raising in the leadership can become a base for negative influence in the election and beyond. Now, since he played an active role in the last election campaign of America and successfully played a role in fund raising, Elon Musk is not only a master in the policy making of America, but also in implementation and 

It is said that he looks like the 'defacto president'. At different times in India and Nepal, various industrialists have been involved in controversies due to their support to political parties and their relationship with their leadership. The debate itself is not new in Nepal about this provision, which has been experienced by different countries in different contexts and methods. But this provision, which has been canceled by Italy in Europe and has been successful in the Nordic countries, especially Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, does not mean that it will be successful if implemented in Nepal.

And, even in Europe, when the state provides election expenses to the parties, people's acceptance is weakening, and the experience and studies have started to tell. Especially, the party that came to power once has been using and using Nepali state treasury indirectly through the title of security, vehicles and financial subsidies. 

The vehicles used by the party leader when going to the election as a minister or ex-minister, the security mechanism and the facts of going there and reassuring the public by saying 'the budget I brought when I was in the government' are examples of such indirect resource allocation/use. Now, in addition to this, if there is a system of transferring the state funds to the party's account based on the latest 'performance' of the parties, it is necessary to confirm its justification.

If this type of system is tried to be introduced only on the basis that the election system has become expensive, then first of all it is necessary to be clear about the expenses of the state, party or candidate. When starting this system, it seems natural that there will be another burden on the state treasury, but it does not help the state treasury to make cheap elections. It can be said that there will be some relief for the parties when the subsidy goes to them. But experience elsewhere says that creating the conditions for parties to run with all state resources leads to the Chinese model where the party and the state are inseparable.

It has been seen that if only partial resources are received from the state, the common people there will be reluctant to pay membership fees and ultimately, the adoption of the political party as an organization that should and should be run collectively with their own support will be reduced. Experience says that the state provides partial funding to the parties, when the support of the people is weak, the parties are forced to spend the rest of the budget depending on the levy paid by the incumbents.

In a country like ours that has financial practices based on informal economy, where party leaders are dominated by the idea of ​​having wealth and money for the future, the practice of using and distributing party assets at the discretion of the party leader, and no one in the party has the practice and condition to question the leadership on the question of maintaining transparency in internal resources and operations, even if such funds come to the parties, there is no possibility that these funds will reach the candidates and voters in accordance with the national purpose and purpose.

There is a third and important aspect of the discussion about who is the most expensive election expenses in Nepal. This topic is especially associated with candidates under the first-come-first-served system. Although the candidates who came on the basis of party tickets usually win, their status is forced to be independent in some cases when contesting the elections. Even if the party gives some support to such candidates according to their status, the social aspects of that constituency, the nature of independent or other party candidates who are competing with that candidate, etc. become the basis of the expenditure in that constituency.

If there is a violation of the existing role order or concessions or prejudice/favor of the leaders while taking the ticket from the party, it seems that the candidate has to work hard to 'convene' and mobilize the party's top leaders and workers. It seems that money has been used a lot in that order.

Nepal's experience tells us that the more people's representatives are involved in the mobilization of state funds, the more people's representatives become people's representatives, the trend of money laundering has increased. It seems that the money used to influence or pressure the group or person who gave the ticket in the beginning, rather than the expenses spent on mobilizing dissenting factions within the party itself, takes up a larger part of the individual's election expenses. As mentioned above, the money that stays with the party leaders is the thinking of Joho and in a country like ours with financial practices based on the informal economy, this is the way to buy tickets. Competent and reclusive leaders who don't buy tickets are bound to fall behind.

Therefore, the compulsion to buy tickets and even in the process of buying tickets, even after spending a large sum of money, Munto was not able to contest the election because he was richer than other aspirants who were sitting on the other side, because he came to contest the election/received comments, and now there is another compulsion to understand the functionaries who are hoping that they will be able to have fun for a few days in the name of election campaigning. Also, seeing/seeing this does not convince the well-wishers and voters of the indifferent party.

In this way, where will the money from the state coffers help with the expenses incurred by a candidate to bring everyone to the polling station and where will the election expenses be reduced and the debate on democracy, transparency and accountability will be easy? This is the biggest challenge, where can the justification of the state's gratuity be established? 

Seven laws have been enacted in 2017 for conducting and managing elections in Nepal. The election code of conduct created along with that has regulated the maximum amount that a candidate can spend during the election. Unwanted expenses can be controlled through its implementation. But the ex-commissioner himself has publicly admitted in the program of the civil movement that even though the election expenditure statements of the candidates were submitted to the election commission as prescribed, the commission never opened them and the reason for that is that they are all false.