PESHAWAR, March 14: The Centre for Civic Education (CCE) Pakistan has launched a campaign “Clean Money for Clean Politics” with a view to examining the existing situation and kicking off a public debate on this core issue.

In order to solicit views of various stakeholders on how to work in the best way for political reforms in the country, the CCE has organised a consultative workshop which will be held at the Peshawar Press Club on Tuesday.

The campaign draws its major arguments from the Global Corruption Report-2004, published by the Transparency International (TI), in which Pakistan figures among the states where investment in political parties can yield desired policy outcomes sought by the investors in the game.

The TI report places Pakistan in the category of countries with ‘medium political corruption’, where a culture of policy consequences of political donations and odd reality of illegal political donations exists.

Democracy thrives on political parties which organise, campaign and communicate, require and spend money for their existence. Today, political parties need permanent staff, well-run secretariats and sufficient amount of money for both electoral and routine campaigns.

These parties mostly rely on their leaders’ purse or on a highly secretive and centralised system of donations. The prevailing practice often deteriorates country’s democracy into plutocracy and bar citizen’s participation in political process.

Can this odd practice be changed? In order to find an answer to this question, the CCE has initiated a consultative process and its workshop is a step towards initiation of a much needed public debate on this vital but generally ignored issue and exploration of possibilities of political funding reforms in Pakistan. Participants from different walks of life including political leaders, journalists and academics will share their views on the subject.