Constitutions, electoral laws, political party laws, and various regulations have an impact on political parties and candidates. This section deals with laws and regulations that concern parties and candidates such as the registration requirements for political parties as organisations and roles and functions that are attributed to political parties in the political system by constitution or party law. In particular, this section discusses the funding of political parties and the financial regulations that stipulate income, expenditure, and reporting rules for political parties and candidates. Another topic that is dealt with is legislated quotas, i.e., constitutional quotas or quotas defined by the electoral law.
The internal functioning of political parties, and the regulations that concern parties and candidate in the electoral process and in the legislature, are covered in subsequent sections.