Editor in Chief : SARAH WILLIAMSCONTENTSRESOURCES    EDITORIALFunding of elections is no answer to venality. They take over the streets during elections. They deface walls. Their loudspeakers shatter the quiet of our neighbourhoods. They commandeer, with suitable inducement, hundreds of persons out of their daily gainful work to cheer their rallies. And now it would seem that they, aspirants to the legislatures, want the taxpayer to fund this excess. The law ministry has finalised a blueprint to initiate funding of elections out of the Central budget. It could appear very timely. In a month when one lot of MPs after another has been caught selling parliamentary privileges, an old excuse is being trotted out again. To understand a legislator's vulnerability to financial temptation to take money for submissions during Question Hour or to solicit kickbacks for MPLADS works, say apologists, understand the economy of electioneering. To clean up politics, they argue, clean up the process of election first. Have the state fund election campaigns, so that early inducement to corruption is rendered unnecessary. It is not that simple. This recourse to first principles — state funding of elections — is a valuable part of election reform. But it cannot substitute for the mechanisms that must be expeditiously put in place to enforce accountability and transparency in elections. A few points need to be clarified. A key recommendation of state funding is that by having part of the tab picked up, candidates are obligated by the transaction to adhere to certain norms and good practices.

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