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.
