The Global Business of Political Power

The money behind the ballot
Elections are sold to citizens as a simple exchange: you vote, and the winner governs on your behalf. Behind that exchange sits a financial system that gets far less attention than the candidates do.

Parties, candidates, consultants, advertisers, event organisers and media companies all earn their living from electoral competition. In some countries the declared bill runs into billions of dollars. In others, much of the spending is hard to see at all.

This article looks at six democracies: the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Brazil, South Africa and Ghana. It asks a narrow question that the evidence can actually answer: what do the official numbers and rules show about how campaign money is raised, limited and disclosed?

It does not claim that money buys elections or that donors buy policy. Neither claim can be proven from spending totals. What the totals can show is how visible the money is, and how much of it citizens can trace.

One warning before the figures. They come from different institutions, cover different periods and measure different things. They are not a league table, and they should not be compared directly.

1. United States: the scale of the bill

The Federal Election Commission reports that during the 24 months to 31 December 2024, presidential candidates spent about $1.8 billion and congressional candidates about $3.7 billion. Political parties spent about $2.6 billion. Political action committees spent about $15.5 billion. Independent expenditures, which are spending to support or oppose candidates without coordinating with them, totalled about $4.4 billion.

These categories overlap and should not be added together. Money moves between committees, and independent expenditures are often made by organisations that also appear elsewhere in the commission’s tables.

Why is the figure so large? The electorate is huge and spread over a continent. Campaigns buy television, digital advertising, polling and voter-contact operations. The law allows large independent spending by outside groups. And federal decisions on tax, regulation, energy and healthcare matter a great deal to the businesses and unions affected by them.

Giving money or lobbying is not improper in itself. Businesses, unions, charities and individuals have every right to tell government what they want.

The real issue is unequal capacity. A wealthy donor can fund research, hire advocates and keep relationships with officials going for years. A low-income voter has one vote and little time. Voting rights are equal. The resources to shape the political climate are not.

2. United Kingdom: limits, but not equality

Britain regulates campaign spending. Parties, candidates and certain non-party campaigners face legal limits and must report what they spend.

The Electoral Commission reported a record £94.5 million of regulated spending at the 2024 general election. Labour was the highest-spending party at about £30.1 million, followed by the Conservatives at about £23.9 million. Candidate spending totalled about £23.3 million, according to the House of Commons Library.

These figures cover regulated spending only. They exclude much of the activity that surrounds politics, including lobbying and donations outside the regulated period.

Limits help. They cap how far a party can outspend its rivals during the regulated period, and reporting lets journalists see where the money went. But they do not give a new movement the donor networks, brand recognition and organisation that established parties already have. Controlling spending can improve the contest. It cannot make influence equal.

3. India: a huge election with incomplete numbers

The 2024 general election covered hundreds of millions of voters. It also ran alongside state assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim.

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) analysed expenditure statements from 32 national and regional parties. Together they declared about ₹3,352.81 crore. The Bharatiya Janata Party accounted for about ₹1,494 crore, or roughly 45 per cent. Publicity was the largest category, at about ₹2,008 crore, just over 53 per cent of the total.

This is not the cost of the election, and ADR’s own findings show why. At the time of its report, statements from 21 parties, including the NCP, CPI, JMM and Shiv Sena (UBT), were not on the Election Commission’s website. Filings from the BJP were reported as 139 to 154 days late, and from AAP 168 days late. Two parties declared zero expenditure despite contesting. Spending by 690 unrecognised parties was not analysed.

A separate, much larger figure circulated before the vote. In February 2024, The National reported an estimate from N. Bhaskara Rao of the Centre for Media Studies that political parties and candidates were set to spend more than 1.2 trillion rupees, about $14.4 billion. That was a forecast, made before polling, covering parties and candidates, and it cannot be set beside the 32-party declaration.

The gap between the two numbers is the point. When official filings are late, partial and incomplete, citizens cannot say how much was spent or by whom. A big budget does not prove a party bought an election. Organisation, alliances, local candidates and voter preference all matter. But a system that cannot be measured cannot be properly judged.

4. Brazil: public money, spending ceilings, and a court that audits

Brazil combines public campaign funding with spending ceilings and a court that reviews campaign accounts.

The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) approved the 2022 accounts of the ticket of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Geraldo Alckmin. According to the court, as reported by Reuters, the ticket raised about R$135.5 million and spent about R$131.3 million, below the ceiling of about R$133.4 million.

The review was not a formality. The court’s technical staff had flagged irregularities of about R$620,000. The campaign explained them, the staff recommended approval, and the court approved the accounts unanimously on 6 December 2022. The judge reporting on the case said the flaws “did not compromise the regularity of the accounts”.

Public funding comes through the Special Campaign Financing Fund, which was set at R$4.9 billion for 2022. Its distribution formula answers a question that campaign-finance debates often leave open: who gets the public money? Only 2 per cent is shared equally among all registered parties. The other 98 per cent follows existing representation: 35 per cent by votes won in the last Chamber of Deputies election, 48 per cent by the number of deputies, and 15 per cent by the number of senators.

So public funding reduces dependence on private donors, but it also favours parties already in Congress. That is a design choice with consequences for new entrants. Brazil shows that rules can make spending accountable when the institutions enforcing them are capable and independent. It does not show that public money makes competition fair.

5. South Africa: disclosure as a tool for scrutiny

South Africa’s political party funding law requires disclosure of donations above a set threshold, and the Electoral Commission (IEC) administers it.

For the quarter from 1 January to 31 March 2024, the IEC reported a record R172,069,959 in declared donations. Thirteen parties declared donations, among them the African National Congress, the Democratic Alliance, the Inkatha Freedom Party, ActionSA, the Patriotic Alliance and Rise Mzansi.

Donations are not wrongdoing, and parties need money. The value of disclosure is that journalists, researchers and citizens can see who funds whom, and ask whether policy decisions line up with donor interests. A disclosed donation is not proof of influence. The absence of one is not proof of independence. Disclosure gives scrutiny something to work with. It does not replace investigation.

6. Ghana: no limits, and little data

Ghana is the weakest case on the evidence, and it is worth saying so plainly. The sources used here describe the rules. They do not give a reliable figure for what Ghanaian parties and candidates actually spend.

On the rules, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) states in its December 2024 election guide that Ghana has no campaign spending limit and no donation limit for parties or candidates. It also notes the constitutional bar on contributions from non-citizens: under Section 55(15) of the 1992 Constitution, only Ghanaian citizens or Ghanaian-owned companies may donate to a registered party.

Observers have questioned how well the rules work. In 2020, European Union observers said that unregulated political finance, misuse of state resources and vote-buying created an uneven playing field, that oversight by the Electoral Commission was weak, and that the requirement to file a statement of assets and liabilities before an election was not enforced. That finding concerns the 2020 election, not 2024. In March 2024, an adviser from the International Republican Institute told party account officers there was “a growing concern on the effectiveness of the regulations on campaign finance”.

What follows from this? Consider two parliamentary candidates. One has wealthy backers, vehicles and a professional team. The other has savings and volunteers. Both have the same legal right to stand. The better-funded one can reach more voters. That does not make them the likely winner, because trust, local reputation and party loyalty count too. But where there is no spending ceiling, the gap in reach is not limited by law.

The donor question is harder. A businessperson who backs a winner and later gains from a government decision has not necessarily been repaid. The test is whether the decision was lawful, transparent and defensible in the public interest. That test is difficult to apply when the public cannot see what was raised and spent.

For Ghana, the aim should not be simply to spend less on campaigns. It should be to make the money visible and enforceable.

What the six cases show

Three points hold across these systems, and they hold only to the extent the evidence supports them.

Disclosure is uneven everywhere. The US publishes detailed data but allows enormous independent spending. India publishes filings, but late and incomplete. South Africa discloses donations, but only above a threshold. Ghana’s available sources describe rules rather than results.

Rules matter only if they are enforced. The Brazilian court actually queried the accounts and reduced them to a documented outcome. That is the difference between a rule on paper and a rule in operation.

Limits and funding do not equalise influence. Britain’s limits, Brazil’s public fund and South Africa’s disclosure each address one part of the problem. None addresses all of it.

What would help: an argument, not a finding

The following recommendations are the editors’ reasoning. They are not conclusions drawn from the data above, and the right mix will differ by country.

Disclosure should be timely and complete, so that citizens can see sources and spending while it still matters. Electoral bodies need the independence and staff to check accounts and act on breaches. Countries without ceilings, such as Ghana, could consider limits designed to respect constitutional rights without favouring incumbents. Public funding formulas should be examined for their effect on new parties. Officials should declare financial interests, and procurement decisions should be documented and open to scrutiny.

No single reform removes the risk.

The real test

Money flows towards political power because political decisions allocate public resources, rules and opportunities. That is true from Washington to Accra.

A large budget is not proof of corruption. A rich donor does not automatically control a government. A heavy spender does not always win. But citizens should not assume that political money is irrelevant either.

The question to ask of any system is not how much is spent. It is whether voters can see who is paying, whether independent bodies can check the books, and whether officials can be held to account after the votes are counted.

Because whatever monies spent, citizens will bare the cost.

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