In the City of Buenos Aires Runoff Campaign, the PRO and the Frente para la Victoria spent more money than authorized by law
<p style="line-height: 20.8px;">According to the Auditor General of the City, both parties failed accountability for advertising expenses.</p>
The two electoral formulas that last year played a second round for the Headquarters of the Buenos Aires Government spent more money than they were authorized by law, according to a report by the Auditor General of the City (AGCBA, for its acronym in Spanish).
The Frente para la Victoria spent $ 217,772.57 more than prescribed by Law 268 of Regulation and Financing of Political Parties and Electoral force in the City Capital Campaigns, they had the most exceeded cashflows. In the ballot former Education Minister Daniel Filmus and the owner of Bank Credicoop, Carlos Heller, were included as candidates for Chief and Deputy Chief respectively.
Law 268 sets a cap on each list of $ 1,029,492.40 to finance the campaign for the second round. That total comes from Article 8 of the Act which provides that the maximum expenditure for the runoff "cannot exceed $ 0.40 per registrant elector" (2,573,731 people). Accountability must be made 30 days after the election.
Between public and private contributions, the Frente para la Victoria’s expenses totaled $1,016,479.54, more than $ 13,000 under the limit, but omitted in spending $ 230,785.43 on a Solidarity Party. This group belonged to the Frente para la Victoria Alliance and its attorney was Carlos Heller, Filmus’ second man. For the second round, according to the AGCBA, the Solidarity Party held "miscellaneous expenses that were not timely communicated" and also to "know the origin of the funds" with which these expenditures were addressed. This data comes from the Audit queries made to providers who billed advertising jobs for Heller’s political space. The sum of the costs of the Frente para la Victoria and Solidarity Party spent $1,247,264.97, exceeding the legal limit at nearly $220,000.
The watchdog also found irregularities in several posters on public roads of the Frente para la Victoria which did not include printing identification, as required by Article 4 of Law 268.
The National formula Proposal also exceeded the expenditure ceiling. The pairing of Mauricio Macri and Gabriela Michetti paid expenses for $1,022,858.97, $6,633.43 less than statutorily prescribed, but the AGCBA found $ 44,980 for radio advertising and a rental of a tango space that the PRO did not justify. Thus, the party of Macri spent in the runoff a total of $1,067,838.97 and exceeded the limit by $38,346.57.
