The right-wing and neo-liberal Likud-Beytenu party spent NIS 71 million ($20 million) on their election campaign last year, driving their budget deficit to NIS 21 million ($5.9 million), which could threaten its continued operations, State Comptroller Yosef Shapira said in a report on the 2013 elections released Wednesday. The report also revealed that the extreme right-wing Jewish Home party, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua party, and the Palestinian-Arab Balad party were subject to hefty fines for financial irregularities.

The Jewish Home faction was levied with a NIS 380,000 ($108,000) penalty after the financial summary they filed was deemed incomplete. Similarly, the Hatnua party received a NIS 140,000 ($39,000) penalty, and the Balad faction was forced to pay NIS 160,000 ($45,000) for failing to report all of its expenses. Shapira also blasted Balad for “missing receipts” for NIS 2.5 million of its expenses, limiting his ability to verify how much the party spent and if it was spent properly.

When it came to exorbitant spending of public funds on the campaign, the comptroller specifically criticized the Likud-Beytenu party’s pre-election gala, the costs of which amounted to NIS 1.25 million ($355,000), including NIS 80,000 ($22,000) paid to popular singer Sarit Hadad for a three-song show. “Even during an election there is no room for organizing extravagant and luxurious conferences, the cost of which adds up to huge sums at the expense of public funds, and financed by the taxpayer,” he wrote.

Hadash did not spend more than the allotted funds.
Haredi Shas has the second-largest deficit, standing at NIS 12 million ($3.4 million), which has in part been attributed to the party’s expectation to receive more seats and, consequently, a larger budget. The reckless spending is liable to negatively affect the parties, Shapira cautioned. “The deficits of some of the parties is likely to endanger their financial solvency and continued operation,” he wrote. The comptroller found dozens of cases in the 2013 election where deceased individuals “voted.” Another irregularity that the comptroller found was that some 5000 individuals voted even though they were not in the country at the time of the election.