Integrity safeguards in financing elections and political parties

Money is often deemed an integral component of democracy as it enables political participation, campaigning, and representation. However, when money is not efficiently regulated, it endangers the integrity of both the political and electoral processes, it weakens institutions, and jeopardises the quality of democracy. Lebanon is no exception to the rule. The dissection of the money-politics relation in the Lebanese context shows how entrenched corruption is in a system made of sophisticated networks of clientelist networks across both the public and private sectors whose sole purpose is to maximise private gains. As such, a sound enforcement of campaign finance regulations as initially envisioned by lawmakers is intertwined with an advanced global regulatory framework for political funding.   Corruption as a prevalent aspect of the political life Whilst systemic corruption is hardly regulated through traditional means of campaign finance, maintaining integrity safeguards in financing elections and political parties could be the