The state’s anti-corruption arm has hired independent observers to collect and analyze parties’ expenses, it announced yesterday.
The most recent country to gain European Union candidate status dispatched 165 observers on March 14.
"We work strictly incognito. Just watch and record," one observer told Balkan Insight.
This is the first general election in which parties are under a new law, adopted in June, mandating that all parties submit financial reports during the campaigns to the anti-corruption agency.
Parties are entitled to share approximately €8 million for campaign purposes, which is 0.1 percent of the state’s budget.
