Labor leader fined for campaign financing infractions

State Comptroller Yosef Shapira hands fines totaling more than NIS 200,000 ($55,000) to Labor chairman Avi Gabbay and other members of the party for campaign financing violations during last year’s leadership primary.

“After I received responses from the candidates on the results of the inspection of their bank accounts and conducted further checks, and after some of them met me and responded to the findings, I ruled that for five of the candidates there were deficiencies in heeding legal instructions and the comptroller’s instructions,” Shapira writes.

Gabbay was handed a NIS 90,000 fine for spending half a million shekels beyond the 1.4 million permitted by law during his successful bid for the leadership in July 2017.

The report also finds that Gabbay spent more than NIS 1 million of his own money on campaigning during the two rounds of polls.

Opposition Chairman Isaac Herzog, who unsuccessfully ran for reelection and was recently named the next head of the Jewish Agency, is given a NIS 60,000 fine after the comptroller ruled that he exceeded the legally permitted amount by NIS 400,000. Herzog is said to have spent NIS 410,000 of his personal money on the campaign.

Another candidate, MK Erel Margalit, is fined NIS 30,000 — the same amount by which he exceeded the expense ceiling. He spent NIS 800,000 of his own money on the campaign.