Corruption in Latin America: Uruguay is top of the class, Venezuela is the red lantern

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – According to Transparency International, corruption has been entrenched in Latin America for a decade, with little progress and many setbacks in terms of democracy and human rights, which today warned of the exceptional deterioration in Central America.

Transparency International (TI) published Tuesday its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2021, which warns of this evolution in Central America, where authoritarianism is advancing, and the data of the last decade in consolidated democracies such as Chile.

Practically no country can boast of significant improvements in the last ten years of publishing the index. The vast majority have barely made any progress or have even regressed in TI’s ranking each year.

At the top are Uruguay and Chile, with 73 and 67 points respectively out of a maximum of 100. At the same time, according to the index, Venezuela (14) and Nicaragua (20) remain the most corrupt countries in the region.

Uruguay added two points since 2020 and is positioned as the “least corrupt in a corrupt continent”.

Of the rest, the only one that passes is Costa Rica, with 58 points, followed by Cuba (46), Colombia (39), Argentina, Brazil (38), Ecuador, Panama, Peru (36), El Salvador (34), Mexico (31), Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Paraguay (30), Guatemala (25) and Honduras (23).

The report also reviews the evolution of the last ten years of rankings: Paraguay is the only one that has significantly improved its score; Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have fallen considerably.

Luciana Torchiaro, TI’s regional advisor for Latin America, explained to Efe that this stagnation has “undermined democracy and human rights” and has also impacted poverty and inequality indices and affected the fight against the pandemic.

DEMOCRACY AND CORRUPTION

The NGO regrets that despite extensive legislative development and a regional commitment to act against this phenomenon, corruption undermines democracy and respect for human rights.

Torchiaro recognizes that the region has good anti-corruption legislation and that governments have made commitments but that “there is a lack of firm actions to fulfill them”.

For this, the analyst believes, “it is necessary to provide the public bodies in charge of implementing these laws with the necessary economic and technical resources, and, of course, to add political will”.

Torchiaro also stresses the importance of guaranteeing the separation of powers in a region where “the system of checks and balances is fragile”.

TI denounces that in 2021 there were severe attacks on the press, freedom of expression, and freedom of association in Latin America. It describes civil and political rights as “fundamental for healthy democracies without corruption”.

SITUATION OF PARTICULAR CONCERN IN CENTRAL AMERICA

The report is particularly concerned about the situation in Central America, where it warns of growing authoritarianism in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

In Nicaragua, the concentration of power has allowed the government of Daniel Ortega to violate human rights and make a mockery of the electoral system, the NGO denounces.

In El Salvador, the Bukele government has embarked on an authoritarian drift with measures that undermine the independence of the judiciary and public attacks on civil society organizations, activists, and independent journalists.

Regarding Venezuela, it stresses that not only is it at the bottom of the ranking, but it has obtained the lowest score in its history, and the country is one of the most corrupt in the world.

MANY SHADOWS AND FEW LIGHTS

TI regrets that the promises made during the election campaign to fight corruption have, in most cases, failed to materialize.

This year, it says that no progress has been made in Mexico despite President López Obrador’s anti-corruption rhetoric. He highlights the major corruption scandals involving government collaborators and criticism for political and electoral use of the Attorney General’s Office.

Argentina is the Latin American country that regresses the most in 2021, losing 4 points compared to 2020 due to the feeling of impunity derived from political interference in justice and, above all, from the scandals related to the vaccination process.

Among the most robust democracies in the region, Uruguay and Chile stand out. The former manages to hold its own, demonstrating that strong institutions, judicial independence, and fundamental rights are crucial to fighting corruption.

“What we have been able to confirm with the case of Uruguay is one of Transparency International’s great hypotheses: when strong and democratic institutions work, corruption is lower,” adds Torchiaro.

In contrast, Chile has remained stuck at 67 points since 2017. Corruption scandals related to politics or security forces known in these ten years, such as the Pentagate of 2014, have undermined trust in institutions in the country, which remains far from the 73 points it once reached.

However, TI celebrates that the country has a “unique opportunity” to reverse this trend if it incorporates anti-corruption elements in the proposal for a new Constitution.

“Fundamentally, governments move from words to action,” claims Torchiaro, for whom it is also essential that citizens can control power, demand accountability, and question what is happening.

“Big changes do not only happen from above, but also from below. Success in the fight against corruption depends on all sectors, all of us, doing our bit,” concludes the analyst.