These 5 Facts Explain the State of Global Corruption
Ian Bremmer @ianbremmer March 17, 2016
Andre Penner—APDemonstrators hold a sign that reads in Portuguese "Dilma out" during a protest demanding the impeachment of Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Aug. 16, 2015As Brazil grapples with an earth-shaking corruption scandal, a look at the state of global honesty
You can learn a lot about a country’s politics by looking closely at its corruption scandals. Who is investigating whom? What do the investigators really hope to achieve? And what do the investigations tell us about the country’s true balance of power? These five facts offer examples and answers.
1. Brazil
Brazil’s so-called Car Wash corruption scandal, which appears on the verge of bringing down a president, centers on Petrobras, the state-run oil giant. Last March, a top Petrobras official admitted that the company was awarding contracts in exchange for bribes, some of which were diverted to political slush funds. Brazil’s current president, Dilma Rousseff, was energy minister and chairwoman of Petrobras when the alleged kickbacks took place, though she has yet to be directly implicated in any wrongdoing.
But with an approval rating of just 21.8 percent, plenty of Brazilians see her as guilty by association—55.6 percent of Brazilians want to see her impeached. Former president and Rousseff mentor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was recently detained for questioning by police. Dozens of politicians are now under investigation, the vast majority of whom belong to Rousseff’s party. This is a country with a long history of official corruption: Four of five living former presidents are currently under investigation for one thing or another.
Tensions boiled over this weekend, and some 3 million Brazilians took to the streets. This type of social unrest would be a worrying sign for the country’s economy, but the Brazilian stock market surged 18 percent on news of Lula’s detention and speculation that Rousseff might finally be impeached—speculation that will grow stronger with the news that Rousseff may have offered Lula a cabinet post to help give him greater immunity from foreign prosecutors. And that’s the main takeaway here: Brazil is a country with a genuinely independent and empowered investigator capable of putting the country’s most powerful under a public microscope. Anti-corruption drives can create political chaos in the short-term, but they can benefit the country in the long-term if sunlight is used properly as a disinfectant.
(Bloomberg, The Guardian, The Economist)
2. Malaysia
That’s not the case with Malaysia. In 2009, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak established a sovereign wealth fund called 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) to help the country attract foreign investment and boost its economy. Long story short, by 2015, 1MDB owed investors $11 billion. As investigations of the state fund got underway, it was revealed that $681 million dollars had been deposited into Najib’s personal account. The prime minister copped to the money transfer, but claimed it was a “gift” from the Saudi royal family, about $620 million of which he says he has returned. Two weeks ago, the 1MDB investigation uncovered that the total routed into Najib’s personal account was actually about $1 billion.
Malaysia is a de facto one-party country. All of the country’s six post-independence prime ministers have come from the United Malays National Organization (UMNO). That’s why Najib owes his position to his party, not to the Malaysian people—good news for a man currently polling at 23 percent, the lowest ever for a Malaysian head of government. He has spent the last half-decade strengthening his position within UMNO, and the past year since the 1MDB scandal broke purging his party of potential adversaries. This past summer, Najib fired his attorney general, who had been leading the 1MDB investigation. Malaysia exemplifies how corruption drives can fall short in countries with a single political party and weak governing institutions.
(The Wall Street Journal, CNBC (a), CNBC (b), Australian National University)
3. South Africa
Half a world away, South Africa tells much the same story. Like Najib, South African president Jacob Zuma has been dogged by corruption allegations for years. Most recently, Zuma has been accused of improperly using taxpayer money for “security upgrades” to his personal residence. These include construction of an amphitheater, a swimming pool, and a chicken run—because you can never be too careful. As of this writing, a South African court is hearing a case to reinstate 783—the actual number—corruption charges against him, which include pocketing kickbacks associated with arms deals. But like Najib, Zuma’s power comes from effective control of his political party rather than directly from the people—just 36 percent of South Africans approve of Zuma’s job performance in 2016, down from 64 percent in 2011. Don’t expect South Africa’s anti-corruption push to amount to much because this is a country where investigators are empowered to bring damaging allegations to light, but not to enforce their judgments. Zuma will probably survive through the end of his term in 2019.
(The Economist)
Read More: How the Petrobras Scandal Ensnared Lula—and Upturned Brazilian Politics
4. China
In China, it’s the leader who runs the investigations. President Xi Jinping has presided over a far-reaching anti-corruption campaign, with a particular emphasis on curbing wasteful government spending. Over the last three years, punishments have been handed down to 750,000—also the actual number—party members. Corruption inspection teams have more than doubled their staff in recent years, and have gotten a boost from the Chinese people—since 2013, corruption inspectors have received more than 270,000 tips from the Chinese public. Beijing even launched a WeChat account in January to make reporting graft easier.
Of course, the anti-corruption push is politically useful for Xi. Aside from dealing with the country’s real corruption problem, the campaign aims to restore public confidence in the ruling party at a time when the Chinese economy is slowing. It also helps that the anti-graft crackdown ensures that Xi can sideline opponents of his political agenda ahead of next year’s leadership transition in which five of seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the pinnacle of the country’s leadership, are scheduled to be replaced.
(The Wall Street Journal (a) , The Wall Street Journal (b), Radio Free Asia)
5. Russia
The Kremlin has Russia’s corruption problem fully under control. At least that’s what the 90 percent of Russians who get their news from state-dominated media have been told. Vladimir Putin currently has an approval rating of 83 percent, so the message seems to be getting through. But non-Kremlin sources tell another story. On a scale of 1 to 7 where 7 is “most corrupt”, Freedom House ranks Russia a 6.75. This is a country where corruption investigations are tools used by one political/business faction to cut into another’s market share. These are not the kinds of investigations that strengthen a country or its economy.
(The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Freedom House)
http://time.com/4262897/five-facts-globa-corruption/
Najib Named As No. 2 Most Corrupt On TIME Magazine Cover Is FAKE, And What The Actual Article Hides
From the bad type arrangement and inaccurate publication date, any casual observer can see that the purported magazine cover featuring Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is a bad fake job but this did not stop netizens from forwarding the potentially slanderous image including opposition leaders.
This morning, an image capture of a fake magazine cover went viral on social media despite the very amatuerish attempt at faking a TIME magazine cover, helped in part by the sharing of the image by the opposition, including PKR lawmaker Sivarasa Rasiah amd former Temerloh MP Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah.
Regina Lee, aide to Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, had shared the actual magazine cover on her Twitter feed and appealed to Malaysians common sense about the incredulity of that fake cover.
"These are the actual Time Magazine covers. COME ON LAH PEOPLE," she wrote, sharing the latest actual magazine cover which features Apple CEO Tim Cook on the cover. This is verified by going to the TIME magazine subscription site which displays a similar cover.
Pic: TIME
As for earlier publications in the month, the 21 March edition of TIME Asia has no sign of Najib on the cover either.
A cursory examination of the fake cover will bring to the notice of any casual observer that it clearly is a botched job, from the messy placement of type to the inaccurate publication date imprinted above.
The print edition of TIME magazine is published every Monday and the date on the fake cover is Tuesday, 22 March 2016.
However, there is an article in time.com online news portal that includes Malaysia in its discussion on global corruption written by Ian Brenner dated 17 March.
In the article, Malaysia is placed 2nd among 5 countries in a discussion on the link between politics and corruption scandals, which also includes Brazil, South Africa, China and Russia.
Sounds familiar, except for the exclusion of India, all the countries named besides Malaysia are members of the new monetary union BRICS. The name is an acronym of its member nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, whose economies are speculated to achieve global dominance by 2050, possibly at the expense of the United States of America. Part of the BRICS agenda is to reform global financial institutions after all.
The fact that the article compiled its ranking based on information reported in US media outlets like the much maligned Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The Economist, The Atlantic, CNBC and The Washington Post gives rise to an ulterior motive for the article given the US vested interest in ensuring it maintains the lead in economic growth globally and keeping its financial system and currency in a dominant position worldwide.
This attempt at faking a TIME magazine cover isn't the first time as an article published on time.com itself titled 'Top 10 Fake TIME Magazine Covers' highlights many famous attempts featuring fake covers using its famous masthead as if implying that making it to the cover of TIME magazine signifies a certain achievement.
Pic: TIME
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