In 2001, the ACEEEO celebrated its 10th Anniversary on Brijuni Islands, Croatia. On our jubilee conference we summarized and evaluated the first ten years of the Association as well as discussed current issues of Transparent election campaign financing.
The subject of the Brijuni conference was of great significance. Whereas the issues of unfair public agitation and inadmissible public appearances of candidates during the elections were mostly regulated so as to prohibit such activities, the financing of election campaigns was still not regulated to the extent that would allow election officials to state with certainty that the financing was not a source of inequality among candidates. This was a problem even the countries with a long democratic tradition are faced with, as well as the countries in the process, even though an accelerated one, of learning democracy.
It was therefore important to exchange experience during this Conference, both the experience related to legislative solutions and from the practice of the implementation of election campaigns. The supervision of the financial aspects of the election campaign is extremely important in order to eliminate any doubts that, for example, candidates use for the campaign support from sources that are not allowed, from the so called laundred money.
The experiences gained on the jubilee conference on the Brijuni Islands motivated officials of election commissions to inform the general public in their countries about them as well as to inform the legislative and executive authorities in order to initiate adequate changes and provide the rules to ensure equality in the election campaign, making it possible for voters to make their decisions accordingly.