Tag Archives: Corruption

The Corruption Candidates

In less than a week’s time, there will be a conference on eliminating corruption held in Peru, where the country’s presidential candidates have been invited.

In a country where hardly a day goes by without a corruption scandal hitting the press, more often or not accusing one of the leading candidates of some type of skulduggery, it is shocking that some will not be attending this conference.

Perhaps, they feel that it is a bit of a witch hunt and they are being wrongly singled out but I would argue what better chance they have to bury the past and present a solid and concrete plan to tackle corruption in a country that is pleading for reforms and solutions to this plague.

 

 

 

Presidential Corruption and Elections in Latin America

For anyone who follows politics in Latin America, knows that not a day goes by without a news story, report, interview, publication or study that mentions corruption. Latin America as a whole continues to suffer from both perceived and real corruption at all levels society from high ranking government officials to routine traffic stops being handled in a “friendly” manner.

Elections bring corruption to a whole new level. Greg Weeks, in his Latin American Politics Blog, mentions a new study that came out highlighting the perceived levels of corruption during governmental transitions. Basically, candidates rail on the regime in power as corrupt while trumpeting all that they will to reform the public sector, punish any form of corruption, and generally clean house. The public generally eats this up as change always brings a sign of hope that perhaps this time things will be different. Sadly, this is not the case and the cycle continues each time there is new elections or in the words of Mr. Weeks, “Wash, rinse, repeat.”

I would argue that this same study could be done on other issues such as education reform, fighting crime, improving trade and international relations, protecting the environment, putting aside partisan differences and any number of other issues. Hopefully, for the sake of Latin America one of these times the new regime will actually do something about corruption instead of just use it to gain electoral sympathies from the voting public.