As the election campaign heats up, political parties are fiercely competing to win votes by offering generous cash handouts, raising concerns about their impact on the country's fiscal discipline for the incoming administration.
Such concerns are warranted. Yet the focus on the post-election financial burden should not overshadow the outgoing administration's last-minute budget spending for political gain, which also endangers fiscal discipline.
The 2018 State Fiscal and Financial Act mandates that the government exercise strict fiscal restraint and forbids it from pursuing political gain at the expense of the nation's long-term interests. This law also establishes fiscal rules and regulations on how the government must manage state income and expenditure while imposing a limit on the accumulation of public debt.
