Corruption paves way for populists

GROWING levels of perceived corruption and social inequality provided fertile ground for the rise of populist politicians in 2016, watchdog Transparency International (TI) said this week.

Populist leaders such as US President Donald Trump and French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen regularly drew links between a “corrupt elite” and the marginalisation of working people. But anti-establishment parties generally failed to address corruption once in office, the group said.

“In the case of Donald Trump, the first signs of such a betrayal of his promises are already there,” TI’s research chief, Finn Heinrich wrote in a blog about the report. He said Trump was talking about “rolling back key anti-corruption legislation and ignoring potential conflicts of interest that will exacerbate, not control, corruption”.

The TI report came two days after constitutional and ethics lawyers filed a lawsuit alleging that Trump was “submerged in conflicts of interest”.

Trump dismissed the allegations and said the lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington was “without merit”.

The group’s annual report said Qatar showed the biggest drop in confidence last year after the Fifa soccer scandals and reports of human rights abuses. Somalia was the worst performer on the list for the 10th year.

TI said the report showed pervasive public sector corruption around the world. About 69% of 176 countries scored below 50 on the index scale of 0 to 100, with 0 perceived to be highly corrupt and 100 considered “very clean”. More countries declined in the index than improved in 2016, it noted.

Denmark and New Zealand performed best in 2016, with scores of 90, followed closely by Finland (89) and Sweden (88).

Somalia remained the worst performer with a score of 10, followed by South Sudan (11), North Korea (12) and war-torn Syria (13).

The US ranked 18th on the list, down from 16th in 2016, with a perceived corruption score of 74. —