Current law prohibits donations from businesses that receive contracts from the state and gambling. The Health Minister is proposing the changes this week, after the connections that have emerged in recent months involving (legal) drug companies, illegal drugs, and contributions to President Cristina Kircher’s campaign. Story at Clarin (spanish).

A series of scandals involving pharmaceutical companies — each pointing in the direction that they are involving in the manufacture and/or trafficking of illicit drugs, and the most dramatic involving the assassination of several businessmen – might be worrisome for President Kirchner (the new one) given that her campaign finance disclosures (and those of her husband) show contributions from [...]

A ”puntero” folding ballots and collecting money. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-jPHuYlyls 

Clarín (spanish) writes that the cross-province fragmentation of parties – which serve as “collectors” and resource supporters for the national candidates – mask the expenditures spent by each coalition. It also recognizes the huge disparity in expenditures for November’s election between the government and opposition coalitions ($17M for Cristina Fernandez’s Frente para Victoria versus $5.7M for Elisa Carrió’s Coalición [...]

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 $800k that was found by Argetine customs officials in August, which was subsequently said to have been contributions from the Venezuelan government to Cristina Fernandez’s presidential campaign and led to firings and resignations in the Argentine government and in the Argentine branch of the Venezuelan oil company, has erupted into a larger international row [...]

The Diario de Salta (spanish) writes that there are too few employees/auditors to enforce campaign finance regulations that apply to the 685 registered political parties in the upcoming (November) elections.

Earlier this month, the Carter Center and Transparency International released a report (spanish) on transparency of political finance in several Latin American countries. The Carter Center’s press release begins:
Berlin / Panama City – Political party and election campaign financing is a murky field in eight Latin American countries, according to a study released today by [...]

A new law, Ley 26.215 “Political Party Finance Law,” went into effect on Wednesday in Argentina, modifying the 2002 campaign finance reform that introduced spending limits and the disclosure of campaign spending. The new law raises the spending limit to 1.5 pesos per registered voter (from 1 peso).
According to Agencia Nova, the law also raises the budget [...]

Yesterday saw developments on several stories previously posted here. (Click on each country in the sidebar for these previous posts.)
Argentina: The lower house (Cámara de Diputados) approved and sent to the Senate the pending reform that raises the spending limit for federal elections from 1 to 1.5 pesos per registered voter. The [...]

Congressional commissions have approved raising the campaign expenditure limit for parties in elections to 1.5 pesos (up from 1 pesos) per registered voter as well as require parties to maintain a single campaign account — currently they are allowed one per province (electoral district) — and increase the administrative control over campaign regulations. Clarin (in [...]