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Political corruption
and social exclusion
By Jacobo Quintanilla
Services of the Agency for
Information in Solidarity (AIS)
No
country in the world is immune to the corruption of its political class. However,
the magnitude of the problem varies from
some cases to others,
as documented by the 2004 Global Report on Corruption released by Transparency
International (TI), a nongovernmental organization that combats corruption
worldwide. “Political corruption undermines the hopes of prosperity and
stability of developing countries and damages the world economy,” said Peter
Eigen, TI's president, when issuing the report.
Several of the scandals of political corruption in the past several years
involve the funding of political parties. However, most governments have not
adopted the necessary measures to combat this blight, measures such as public
funding, limits on donations, and transparency in the origin of those
contributions.
There
are numerous initiatives that could be carried out to end these infamous
practices that exclude millions of people from medical assistance, education and
the possibility of a sustainable future. In December 2003 in Mexico, and on a
worldwide basis, the United Nations approved the Convention Against Corruption.
The Convention is the first global instrument to encompass a complete gamut of
anticorruption measures to be applied in every nation. At the same time, it
helps increase international cooperation in the prevention and monitoring of
corruption.
Once
again, there is a way but not a will. The Convention must be ratified by 30
member nations before it can become operative. This is expected to occur by late
2005, although the United States already has undermined the Convention's
potential contribution by refusing to approve any obligatory provision about
transparency in political funding.
The ‘Top Ten’ of worldwide corruption
In
South Africa, for instance, after almost 10 years of democracy, the opacity in
the private funding of political parties has not decreased, because of huge
loopholes in South African law. On the other hand, the government of Nigeria has
the political will to deal with the ignominious legacy of former President Sani
Abacha (1993-1998), who – according to TI – embezzled between $2 billion and $5
billion during his administration.
Another instance typical of Africa is the case of Mobutu Sese Seko, who, in the
32 years he ruled the Democratic Republic of Congo, stashed away in Swiss banks
$5 billion from the more than $12 billion his country received in subsidies,
mostly from the World Bank. In his defense, Mobutu claimed it was “less than $50
million.”
But
let's not assume that political corruption is the exclusive patrimony of the
African continent. Europe and the United States have much to answer for. In many
countries of Western Europe, citizens have free access to information about
donations to political parties. However, in
Austria,
Byelorussia, Bulgaria, Spain, Finland and Turkey such transparency is rare, TI
states. In Albania
and Croatia, there simply is none. And countries like
France,
Greece and Turkey are introducing or passing immunity laws that will protect
high-ranking functionaries from being tried for corruption.
In the
United States, where the funding of parties is a parallel and crazy universe in
terms of the sums of money being contributed, there is a perception that
irregular payments and illegal donations are, paradoxically, less common than in
the average of 102 countries surveyed for the TI report. On the other hand,
there is a perception that legal donations have a notably higher impact on
government policies.
Latin
America is a separate case. Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti,
Honduras, Panama and Paraguay are among the 10 countries with the highest levels
of political corruption, according to the Opinion Survey of Executives conducted
by the World Economic Forum. Argentina improved its situation by passing, in
June 2002, a law on the funding of parties that imposes limits to donations and
sanctions to any violations of those limits. At the opposite end are Peru and
Nicaragua, living examples of continuous negligence; their two former presidents
– Alberto Fujimori and Arnoldo Alemán, respectively – are among the most corrupt
leaders in the world. Both are awaiting trial; an extradition order has been
issued for Fujimori.
At the
head of this infamous Top Ten of corrupt leaders is the former President of
Indonesia Muhammad Suharto, the most corrupt politician in the past 20 years,
who has been accused of stealing between $15 billion and $35 billion of his
country's money, according to TI. Asia is also home to a major focus of
corruption:
Bangladesh is
considered to be – along with Haiti and Nigeria – one of the most corrupt
countries on the planet. Ferdinand Marcos, president of the Philippines between
1972 and 1986, enjoys the doubtful honor of ranking second on the Top Ten list:
TI estimates that he embezzled between $5 billion and $10 billion. And in Japan
and China, fraud in public spending in the construction sector is an everyday
occurrence.
The
responsibility of multinational corporations
TI's
accusatory finger also points to Western corporations that “encourage corruption
in developing countries and sidestep the antibribe laws passed by those
countries.” After conducting a survey among more than 800 companies in 15
developing countries, TI concludes that the worst, the most corruptive companies
are based in Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria and Canada.
“Democracies cannot continue to tolerate bribes, fraud or dishonesty,” wrote
Jimmy Carter, former President of the
United States
and Nobel Peace laureate, in the introduction to TI's report, “especially if
this type of practice hurts the poor in a disproportionate manner.”
It
seems evident, then, that if – along with the lack of a firm international
commitment – there is a lack of political will on the part of corrupt leaders
and corruptive multinational corporations, the result will be broken societies
and the exclusion of millions of people who live with scant or no perspectives
for the future.
One
positive measure would be for the laws that regulate political funding to be
implemented in an effective manner. This would imply an iron-fisted control by
the independent agencies that supervise those processes and enabling those
agencies to start legal proceedings in the event of bad electoral practices. The
problem is that many government leaders would fear being persecuted by those
monitoring agencies once they are removed from power.
Journalist Jacobo Quintanilla contributes regularly to the AIS.
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