In this Best Practice Guide there are three sections, as mentioned above, which are Transparency, Deliberation, and Decision-Making/Collaboration. The experts had to evaluate the inclusion of the indications in the Guide from by giving a score of 1 to 5. The averages obtained regarding the recommendations are described in detail in the following paragraphs.

Figure 1: The foundations of open political parties

Source: Prepared by the author based on the results of the Delphi study

Section I. Transparency

The first section is dedicated to transparency. The experts who participated in the Delphi study rated the need for transparency among political parties to be very high (4.69 on a scale of 1 to 5). To keep citizens informed, parties must also publish information on their digital portals through active publicity. In this sense, they must publish the following information:

Institutional information: data relating to the political party, such as statutes, ideological values, code of ethics, history of the party, and others.

Internal procedures and organisation: information on the functioning and internal and external organisation of the party, such as the organigram, the curriculum vitae of party members, the functions of senior officials, internal regulations, electoral lists, etc.

Data related to corporate communication: those data that are especially useful for journalists and the media, but also for interested citizens, such as the calendar of activities, the agenda of the main party officials, a news section with graphic and audio-visual elements, parliamentary information, links to social networks, and others.

Party accounts and the requirements of the Law on the Financing of Political Parties and contracting: they must publicly disclose the requirements of the Law on Financing Political Parties and the contracting data of the political party as well (instructions and contracts undertaken).

With regard to the Law on Transparency, Access to Public Information, and Good Governance, political parties are considered to be subjects obliged to comply with active publicity, yet they are not obliged to comply with access to