According
to the Tunisian Election Law, an electoral expenditure is any expenditure in
cash and in-kind incurred by or on behalf of the candidate or the party list
during the election period and consumed during the election campaign in order
to get voters’ vote. During the 2014
general elections, the Superior Independent Electoral Authority (ISIE in its
French acronym) issued a decision laying
down the rules, procedures and financial arrangements for the election campaign
in order to further clarify some key concepts. In this instruction, the ISIE went
beyond the definition of the electoral expenditure in the law, to define what
an illegal expenditure was, i.e. vote buying, political advertising and illegal
propaganda, and to highlight that those expenditures shall be counted against
the spending limit.[1] .
[1] Article 38 of the decision of the High Independent
Authority for the Elections n°20-2014 of 8 August 2014 related to the rules,
procedures and methods of the funding of the electoral campaign, the Tunisian
Official Gazette n°65 of 12 August 2014.
