Transparency Of Campaign Funds as A Strategy for Eradicating Criminal Acts of Corruption

Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha, Singaraja, Indonesia

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Abstract

Campaign finance transparency is a crucial element in creating clean and integrity-based elections. The opacity of campaign fund management opens up opportunities for political corruption, such as illegal funding, hidden gratuities, and conflicts of interest between candidates and donors. This study aims to analyze campaign finance transparency as a strategy to eradicate corruption in the election process. The method used is normative juridical research with a legislative, case, and conceptual approach. Secondary data, consisting of primary, secondary, and tertiary legal materials, were obtained through literature reviews and document studies. Qualitative analysis was conducted through the stages of data collection, reduction, presentation, and verification, which were then concluded using deductive and inductive logic. The results of this study indicate that election finance transparency plays a strategic role in preventing and eradicating political corruption. Policy corruption often occurs due to reciprocal relationships between politicians and businesspeople that originate from campaign funding. Once elected, public officials often implement policies that benefit their donors, including through unfair tender winning. As a result, public policy loses its primary function as a solution to societal problems and becomes a means of legitimizing certain interests. This phenomenon undermines the quality of democracy because candidates are selected based on financial strength, not competence. For the public, a transactional political process does not provide sound political education but instead reinforces a culture of corruption and undermines substantive democratic values.