Corruption inhibits democracy

In a conference on democracy in Stockholm this week, the assertion was made that corruption and bribery, which are rife in the world today, are threats to democratization. How serious a threat is corruption?

A study made by the Berlin-based organization Transparency International (TI) concluded that corruption is the number one threat to democracy in the world. TI chairman Peter Eigen said corruption undermines democratic institutions and renders them ineffective. At the same time, people are finding it more difficult to trust corrupt governments.

The issues of democracy and corruption, as presented by Transparency International, made the Stockholm conference -- which was sponsored by the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) -- highly interesting to a large number of people. This was all the more so since TI also published a list of countries, from the cleanest to the most corrupt. A study made by TI last year and involving more than 54 countries listed New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Canada, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands as the ten least corrupt countries. Nigeria, Pakistan, Kenya, Bangladesh, China, Cameroon, Venezuela, Russia, India and Indonesia were listed as the 10 most corrupt countries in the world.

It is not easy to eradicate corruption if it is deeply rooted in society and has been going on for a long time. Herein lies the challenge, though an exceptionally strong political will and concrete action is needed. Corruption as a phenomenon is not a Third World monopoly. It also affects several industrialized countries, though on a relatively smaller scale. We note, for instance, that the United States ranks number 15 among clean countries, and Japan number 17.

As TI has noted, corruption can be freely discussed in the industrialized countries because of the presence of a free press. Through the free press, any question of corruption, collusion and bribery is exposed and openly discussed, for the sake of bringing about improvement and change.

-- Kompas, Jakarta