Tranparency International in Paraguay criticized the presidential candidates, Latinnews.com reports: “On 19 February a local NGO said that so far only presidential front-runner Fernando Lugo had agreed to publish his campaign accounts.”

A reform of legislation dealing with public and private finance of political parties and the use of media during elections is on the government’s agenda for 2008, Uruguay al Día reports. Currently, Uruguay has no legislation governing political finance.

From the Columbia Tribune Politics Blog:
The Missouri Senate gave initial approval by a voice vote Wednesday to legislation that would rescind caps on campaign contributions. … The bill would also require campaigns accepting donations of $5,000 or more to list the contribution online within 48 hours.
 

La Gaceta offers this editorial (spanish) about the expenditure reports – and the Federal Justice’s (JF) job in analyzing and regulating them – for last October’s presidential and legislative elections in Argentina. They say that the JF’s work is cut out for them given that a couple of candidates, including the new president Cristina Fernandez, overspent the allowed [...]

The leftwing coalition FMLN in El Salvador asked the (rightwing) president Antonio Saca to support its proposal for campaign finance reforms a few days after the US accused the FMLN of receiving Venezuelan campaign finance in anticipation of next year’s presidential and congressional elections. AFP’s report (spanish) has no information about any details in the proposal.  

In “Stealthy Groups Shake Up Races“, The Wall Street Journal writes about the various outside organizations that are spending lots of money this election outside of candidates and their campaigns:

Since the 2002 campaign-finance reforms, people who want to influence elections have looked for new ways. Most of their early organizations, like the Swift Boat group, [...]