The Prosecution of Corruption As a Political Strategy* This Is a Rough

The Prosecution of Corruption as a Political Strategy* Daniel Zirker University of Waikato Hamilton, New Zealand

*This paper has been prepared for presentation at the annual meeting of the IPPA, June 26-July 1, 2018, Pittsburg. I would likewould like to thank the administrator of political science at the University of Waikato, Frances Douch, and the Dean of Arts and Social Sciences, Allison Kirkman, for their help in facilitating the presentation of this paper. The conclusions of the paper, and the analyses herein, are my own.

Abstract:

The Prosecution of Corruption as a Political Strategy The prosecution of corruption in developing countries has received increasing attention as the understanding and technology of corruption abatement has improved, as per key scholars in the field (Klitgaard 1988; Rose-Ackermann 1999; Johnston 2005; Quah 2013; Lamsdorff, ) among others. Pressures from the World Bank and the IMF, as well as from foreign aid- granting agencies in Europe and North America, have encouraged a range of developing and more developed countries long beset with both 'need' and 'greed corruption' to show tangible results in their prosecution of corrupt practices. In a number of such countries (e.g., Tanzania, the BRICS countries), however, these prosecutions have apparently come to represent strategies in banal power struggles, show trials that remove potential rivals from political contention. This paper will compare and contrast cases in Tanzania and the BRICS countries, among others, in an effort to shed light on the apparently unintended, and even corrupting, effects of global pressures to reduce corruption, and the promise and pitfalls of such prosecutions in the context of domestic political contestation.

This is a rough draft. Not for citation.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Saint Bernard de Clairvaux (c. 1150)

INTRODUCTION: MAKING SENSE OF ‘CORRUPTION’

The prosecutions of corruption in putatively higher corruption countries have received increasing attention as the understanding and measurement of corruption, the improvements in detection and technological abatement, have improved, as noted by a number of scholars in the field (e.g., Klitgaard 1988; Rose-Ackermann 1999; Johnston 2005; Quah 2013;

Lamsdorff 1999) among others. Global pressures on countries to end corruption clearly stem from good intentions. Corruption is widely regarded as an expensive, disruptive and counter- productive influence upon national development. Pressures from Transparency International

(TI), the World Bank, the United Nations, the IMF, the European Union, the OECD, privately-owned accounting firms as well as an additional range of NGOs, from foreign aid- granting agencies in Europe and North America to emerging ones in Asia and Latin America, have encouraged countries long beset with both 'need' and 'greed corruption' to show tangible results in their prosecution of corrupt practices.

In a number of countries (e.g., Tanzania, the BRICS countries, and Saudi Arabia, the foci of this study), however, these prosecutions have often appeared to be focused upon political strategies, used as weapons in more banal power struggles, and as show trials for alleged “greed corruption,” where “need corruption” remains a critical problem. Such trials, moreover, routinely remove rival political persons from political contention. They “kill two birds with one stone,” as it were. Are such politically geared corruption trials inevitable in mid- to high-corruption countries in this age of rapidly advancing globalization? Are global pressures to prosecute corrupt politicians in effect actually intensifying corrupt practices? In terms of democracy and fairness, the “road to hell” would be lacking even the good intentions that had troubled Saint Bernard de Clairvaux if this were the case.

In most high profile corruption trials the criminal charges and/or allegations of criminal (greed) corruption that have been laid are typically weak, and counter arguments raised are typically allowed to die in the usually impotent, if not always openly compliant, media. While corruption, broadly construed, may be “ever present where power is wielded”

(Friedrich, 1972: 141), and an inevitable condition in a neo-liberal global environment, corruption and perceptions of corruption are widely, if not universally,1 regarded as counter- developmental, delaying or stopping economic progress and reinforcing criminal behaviour in such societies. Corruption is by nature a secretive affair, however, and thus difficult to identify, and even more so to measure. The major categories of corruption, bribery, kickbacks, influence pedalling, nepotism, official fraud, election tampering, moreover, are widely regarded as anathema to liberal democratic societies, strictly policed in ‘least corrupt’ countries, and are at least technically illegal in almost all countries today.

It appears to be the case that countries that are perceived (as ranked in the CPI) to have mid- to high-levels of corruption, and relatively low press freedom, seem to be experiencing an increasing number of corruption show trials, even though such countries often have a preponderance of what is referred to as “need corruption,” the required expenditure of low levels of resources as “user fees” to grossly underpaid bureaucrats, rather than “greed corruption,” large scale corrupt practices that have no apparent developmental value.2 Monika Bauhr contended in 2012, that

Despite extensive international and national efforts to contain corruption, there are few successful anti-corruption programs. The major challenge for the anti- corruption industry is to understand the limited success and find more effective ways to deal with corruption (68)

In the past two decades, global pressures to indict corrupt officials have grown exponentially, stimulated by, among other measures, the UN Convention against Corruption, or UNCaC, signed and ratified by most of the world’s countries, although compliance has been sketchy. The European Union’s Global pressures to address corruption have provided more corrupt countries with what appears to be a convenient tool in the inevitable struggle for

2 power, however. Indeed, elites who all-to-often regard their class interests as national interests, for example, and ‘administration [as] their personal fortress from which they direct the political and economic life of the nation’ (Friedrich, 1972: 145), may even (if not always) have the very best of intentions in their conduct of what are essentially corrupt, if nominally legal, practices. Others openly engage in graphically corrupt practices, protected, or so it may seem, by a prevalence of corruption in their respective societies. Sudden indictments, in these contexts, must seem shocking if not bizarre. International pressures typically suggest that these indictments stem from ‘good intentions.’ Such ‘good intentions’, however, seemingly directed by neo-liberal ideology, which is typically at odds with local culture and even electoral democracies (and their quasi-authoritarian emphasis on equality and transparency) may well represent the ‘road to political hell’, to borrow from Saint Bernard de

Clairvaux’s phraseology.

The following study attempts to clarify with key examples, the strategically political use of corruption prosecutions that often predominates in significantly corrupt societies, in the use of anti-corruption indictments both as instruments to alleviate international anti- corruption pressures, and as effective devices for the removal of rival politicians.

Corruption and Political Corruption

Corruption is, by nature, largely secretive, subject to various (and contrasting) understandings, and hence very difficult to measure. Sample surveys, the bases of both the

CPI and the GCB, are often questionable, given the vulnerability of honest responses to punishment. The reality and measurement of corruption as a social construct has necessarily come to be closely tied, then, to perceptions, the easiest and most apparent understanding of the many phenomena that are grouped under the nomenclature of corruption (Lambsdorff

1999). The surveys that the CPI uses to determine the CPI ranking represent an inexact

(perhaps of questionable validity in an absolute sense), but relatively reliable basis for

3 measurement, at least in the national rankings. It is important to emphasize that the CPI choice of surveys for specific countries, and its algorithm change periodically, making the raw CPI data impossible to compare, although the national rankings do provide an interesting and reliable ordinal data set. They mostly depend upon the perceptions of business people.3

The argument made by Johan Lambsdorff, one of the original formulators of the CPI algorithm, is that the highest degree of validity (as well as reliability) in predicting relative levels of corruption, narrowly and legally defined, can only be achieved in the measurement of elite perceptions (of white-collar business people, the focus of most of the major international surveys used by TI),4 as he explains in a major macro-analysis of the literature

(Lambsdorff 1999).

Corruption is typically defined assuming one of five expressions, all of which are seen to be primarily damaging to political systems. Corruption, in its strict definition, is limited as we have noted (above) to actions or reactions of public officials. Considered individually, individuated as it were, without wider implications for a society, most instances of corruption are relatively innocuous in and of themselves, except, perhaps, for the last category. The five categories typically discussed are: bribery, nepotism, influence peddling, official fraud, and election tampering. Bribery represents the most obvious expression of corruption, and is often used, as in the UK, as a comprehensive definition. A distinction is often made as well between need and greed corruption, and this usually (but not always) applied to bribery.

Bauhr notes that

The need and greed distinction builds on the notion that the motives for being corrupt vary between different settings. That is, the basic motives for paying a bribe or engaging in corruption can be either need or greed….citizens pay bribes either to receive services that they are legally entitled to and that are conditioned upon paying a bribe (“need”)…or to receive advantages that they are not legally entitled to (“greed”) (Bauhr 2012: 69).

Perhaps central to this distinction is the scope of corrupt activities. While “greed corruption” is typically much grander in scale, it is almost universally regarded as illegitimate behaviour, whereas “need corruption,” when it is present in a country, tends to be far wider in

4 distribution, and hence, despite its far lower “take” per act, it is typically regarded by anti- corruption agencies as far more serious a problem. Bauhr observes that

At the root of the most commonly used distinctions between forms of corruption lies the scale or the profitability of different types of corruption. The distinction between petty and grand corruption, for instance, also involves the scale and level of the problem (Bauhr 2012: 68).

Grand corruption is linked to the “less serious” problem of Greed Corruption, acts that can be readily identified in most cultures as both illegal/criminal and, if discovered, potentially prosecuted, if, of course the national will exists to do so.

John T. Noonan, Jr., a former court of appeals judge in the US, noted in his book,

Bribes, that gifts and tips (to government officials) “are equally hard to tell from bribes”

(1984: 688). He argued that all gifts, private or public, anticipate some sort of response. In this context, he noted that a culture of tipping generally accommodates a culture of bribing and/or influence peddling.5

Charges of nepotism have declined in most Western countries since the 1930s, when any hint of nepotism in public service was strictly limited in the interests of rationing public positions to families. Today, it has become the norm in most Western countries that close family members, selected of course strictly on merit, can occupy official positions in the same or proximate departments, if a public official uses his/her influence to accommodate a relative, this is clearly a conflict of interest, and hence a contemporary example of nepotism.6

Influence peddling and election tampering are clearly the most insidious of the categories, fraught with collective and systemic implications, although often regarded, particularly by global moralists, as less pressing than bribery. Over forty years ago Joseph

Nye observed that

…not only is the study of corruption prone to moralism, but it involves one of those aspects of government in which the interests of the politician and the political scientist are likely to conflict’ (1967: 417).

Political corruption, including the prosecution of a political rival to remove him/her from contention, appears far less threatening to international agencies than does structural bribery at an institutionalized and relatively low level. In other words, “need corruption,” because it is often institutionalized, rises above “greed corruption” as an international priority, although global investigators appear to be placated by a “greed corruption” trial. Susan Rose-

Ackerman explained corruption in 1999 as “a symptom that something has gone wrong in the management of the state” (9). This ties in closely to her more collective definition of corruption as one of many “allocative mechanisms” for the distribution of scarce resources

(1978:1), especially where a government has attempted to limit market incentives. Nye argued that corruption “…poses serious problems. Broadly defined as perversion or a change from good to bad, it covers a wide range of behaviour from venality to ideological erosion”

(419).

Peter deLeon summarises the definition of political corruption inclusively:

Reduced to its quintessential meaning, political corruption is a cooperative form of unsanctioned, usually condemned policy influence for some type of significant personal gain, in which the currency could be economic, social, political, or ideological remuneration (1993: 25, Italics in the original).

Political corruption, in essence systemic dysfunction, is only very poorly presented and is generally policed as individual deviant behaviour. Hence, when show trials are staged, and can be interpreted as serving political ends in moderate- to highly-corrupt countries, this attenuates and may even contribute to the impact of corruption, and would seem to inhibit the establishment of a comprehensive social response such as has had a major influence in the last two decades in Singapore and Hong Kong. Because the costs for society of all forms of corruption are intolerably high, we must conclude that virtually all cases of official corruption, perhaps the best description of at least some of these trials, including fraudulent prosecution of political rivals in the process of election tampering, corresponds to some degree to this wider, collective concept of political corruption.

As Erickson acknowledges: “Every human community has its own special set of boundaries, its own unique identity, and so we may presume that every community also has its own characteristic styles of deviant behaviour” (1996: 19). The punishment of alleged greed corruption as legally deviant behaviour reflects a disruption in the social, if not legal relationships. Following on from this, Chibnall and Saunders (1977) argue that private citizens’ “rules” differ markedly from those of elites. They argue that elites and ordinary citizens devise their own conceptions of political ethics by engaging in their own social constructions of reality. The public trials of politically prominent persons can create a wider perception of corruption in a society. Such perceptions may incorporate not only ideas about the legality of behaviour, but also concerns about the secrecy of an action – they suggest that private citizens are likely to see secrecy as evidence of wrongdoing - (“why keep it a secret if you have nothing to hide?”), while elites defend secrecy as a necessary part of policymaking.

Corruption, then, is formally and legally defined in most cases as occurring in one of five expressions, all of which are seen to be primarily damaging in a systemic context. The five categories typically discussed are: bribery, nepotism, influence peddling, official fraud, and election tampering. Bribery represents the most obvious expression of corruption, and is often used by some Western liberal democracies as a comprehensive definition.

‘Corruption’, in its strict and narrowly legal definition, tends to be limited to individual actions or reactions of public officials. The World Bank, however, despite its theoretically global perspective, has proposed a narrow definition, albeit one that (except of course, for stipulating the act of corruption as simply and always individualistic) leaves the door open for a broad range of illegal and legal activities : ‘the abuse of public office for private gain’.

John Girling (1997) notes that ‘corruption is not just a “deviant” element in society, identified by the legal institution’. The fact remains, however, that the term “corruption” is often reduced to a narrow, individual act, as does the following explication: “Any definition of

7 corruption has to incorporate, at a minimum, the notions of [an individual] wrongly getting an advantage—pecuniary or otherwise—in violation of official duty and the rights of others”

(Maingot, 1994). Rather, corruption stems from ‘the incompatibility, in important respects, of economic and political systems: this is the most evident in the case of the mutually exclusive claims of capitalism and democracy’ (Girling, 1997:30).

In this broader regard, over 500 years ago Machiavelli described corruption as a decline in the virtue (or virtù)7 of a state or a ruler. It does not require imagination to suppose that the individual’s “getting of an advantage” (Maingot, 1994) can become a systematized social norm, and treating corruption as merely an individual crime would be, at the very least, ill advised in this context. Carl Friedrich (1972), while recognizing that the common

(individualistic) definition of [greed] corruption misses a wider more pervasive definition perhaps more appropriate for mid- to highly- corrupt systems, also observes that the classic and ancient social definition, as captured by Machiavelli, that corruption is a “general disease of the body politic,” must inevitably be confronted. The cynical use of show trials to undermine political rivals neatly misses this point. For Machiavelli, Friedrich wrote, “…when virtù has been corrupted, a heroic leader must appear who in rebuilding the political order infuses his virtù into the entire citizenry” (Friedrich, 1972: 131). Corruption, in this sense, seen as part and parcel of the corruption of the collective, represents a social, or even society- wide condition, not the transgreesions of a political rival.

Johnston (2005) admits that in his very straightforward individualistic, if broad- reaching, definition of corruption, ‘the abuse of public roles or resources for private benefit’(12), there is abundant contention regarding the key terms of ‘abuse’, ‘public’,

‘private’ and ‘benefit’. It may be of some comfort, if patently inaccurate, in many societies to regard corruption very narrowly as an individual and illegal act that is intrinsically unrelated to a broader, social pattern. However, to use charges of individual corruption against a

8 political rival, even if valid, in a society rife with corrupt practices, sends a decidedly mixed message. When this is accompanied with a veil of secrecy surrounding the long-term policy implications of such trials, the obfuscation of anti-corruption policies is intensified.

Georg Simmel’s 1906 sociological analysis of secrecy, as it happens, outlines a number of the problems latent in secrecy, a concept deeply related to corruption in public administration. As Simmel puts it in the opening lines of his protracted essay, ‘All relationships of people to each other rest, as a matter of course, upon the precondition that they know something about each other’ (441). This proceeds much further in the analysis of representative democratic policy makers. The legitimacy of policies in most societies appears to rest almost exclusively on publicity and transparency in government actions, even though these two features are rarely present in a pure form. Simmel’s point, however, is that in government, secrecy frees the politician from responsibility (496). Moreover, secrecy is a barrier to change. As Simmel puts it, “Refuge in secrecy is a ready resort in the case of social endeavours and forces that are likely to be displaced by innovation” (472).

Karl Deutsch introduced the concept of government qua communication in the early

1960s. If government is communication, then opacity, particularly as a policy, appears to be the abnegation of governmental responsibility. Opacity and concentration of decision- making are intrinsically and causally related, moreover. The shield behind which an irresponsible representative may choose to operate at one and the same time reduces the need to share power. The sharing of policymaking decisions requires transparency—this amounts to accesibility. If would-be participants in the policy making process are ‘shielded’ from the process, the resultant decisions are necessarily concentrated in the hands of the few. As regards government, then, ‘the higher the actual degree of concentration of decisions, the greater the actual degree of vulnerability is apt to be; and the greater the imagined degree of

9 such concentration, the greater may be the fear of infiltration or destruction’ (Deutsch, 1963:

211).

Considered as individual actions, or as individuated, without wider implications for a society, most instances of corruption are relatively innocuous in and of themselves except, perhaps, for ‘election tampering’. A distinction is often made, for example, between ‘need’ and ‘greed corruption’, as they are usually (but not always) applied to bribery. John T.

Noonan, Jr., a former court of appeals judge in the US, noted in his book, Bribes, that gifts and tips (to government officials) ‘are equally hard to tell from bribes’ (1984: 688). He argued, in fact, that all gifts, private or public, gratuities or ‘rewards’, anticipate some sort of response. From this perspective, however, it seems to make little sense to regard cases of corruption, even ‘legitimate’ or ‘legal corruption’, as if they were merely individual aberrations. Society itself, from this perspective, may be hostile or amenable to corruption.

Robert Klitgaard (1988: 75) defined the likelihood of corruption in a given society with an algorithm:

‘C = M + D – A’ (Corruption = Monopoly + Discretion – Accountability ).

While it is widely accepted that there are problems with this formula, it nonetheless useful in understanding the close relationship between corruption, legally defined, and secrecy, especially in “developing countries.”

Influence peddling is the most insidious of the categories, fraught with collective and systemic implications, not to mention difficulties in detection. Although it closely resembles bribery, it typically has societal implications. Prosecutorial evidence in this regard, moreover, must necessarily be built around indications of collective damage. An inexplicably large bank account, for example, may be regarded as the result of a quid pro quo, or as success in the liberal capitalist economy, depending upon the details and transparency of prevailing banking regulations, and the duty-of-care (responsibility to the

10 privacy of potentially innocent actors) in an investigation. Again, a court of law must, of necessity, show that relationship, on an individual level. However, what if such behaviour is serving collective, socio-economic class or partisan ends, such as raising funds for a party electoral contest (or, indirectly, election tampering)?

International Pressures for the Remediation of Corruption and Collateral Benefits

Transparency International, a non-profit NGO established in 1993 to combat global corruption, followed international anti-corruption campaigns by the International Monetary

Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as well as periodically mandated campaigns by the four remaining global accounting and auditing.8 The range of pressures begins with the

Transparency International’s CPI, although its collaborative efforts with other NGOs and government agencies extends its pressure markedly. For example, The Organized Crime and

Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is described on its web page in the following terms:

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is an investigative reporting platform formed by 40 non-profit investigative centers, scores of journalists and several major regional news organizations around the globe. Our network is spread across Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America. We teamed up in 2006 to do transnational investigative reporting and promote technology-based approaches to exposing organized crime and corruption worldwide (OCCRP n.d.).

The Global Anti-Corruption Consortium is described as a new and innovative consortium made up of the OCCRP, TI, and:

• The African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR) • The Government of Argentina • Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade • C4ADS • Connectas • Ministry of Foreign Affairs Denmark • Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs • Open Society Foundations • Open Society Justice Initiative • United States Department of State • United States Agency for International Development (King 2016).

This network of governments, government agencies and NGOs is increasingly capable of offering rewards and disincentives to countries with mid- to high-corruption ratings.

The UN Convention against Corruption (UNCaC), now with almost universal national ratification of publicly declared intent to ratify,9 proposes a regime for each country that includes the establishment of banking transparency for “Politically Exposed Persons,” major government officials and their family members. While most of the countries that have ratified this have only begun to comply with its provisions, the pressure to show progress in the prosecution of corrupt officials is palpably greater in 2018 than it was even five years ago.

The World Bank has a range of measures, including the Worldwide Governance Indicators, and the European Union, in conjunction with the GAN Integrity project, has likewise linked perceived efforts to fight corruption, including what are often regarded as politically- motivated show trials, as “steps in the right direction.” They may not be. As the numbers of overall corruption trials, including those of rival politicians, suddenly increased in India

(Indian Express 2017), concurrent with rising perceptions of corruption, as per the CPI

(Mourdoukoutas 2018), one is left with the impression that global pressures to reduce corruption are at the least ineffective. The OCCRP notes in an article on its web page (King 2016) that:

This new initiative will connect investigative journalists turning a spotlight on the secretive shadow economy with anti-corruption activists able to translate complex information into compelling campaigns for change. The project is structured to ensure the independence of reporters and activists to pursue their distinct goals, and will generate information sharing between those communities on an unprecedented scale, with common themes agreed at editorial level (King 2016).

While private accounting firms, e.g., PricewaterhouseCooper, KPMG, Deloitte, have also taken on an active role exerting international pressures upon corrupt regimes, and have contributed to the rewarding of putative anti-corruption efforts, when they are cynical and politically motivated manipulations of the political process, they may score well with the firms while intensifying their perceptions (if not reality) of corruption. We should remember as well the serious accounting scandals10 leading up to, and following the 2008 global financial collapse. The major international accounting firms that survived this turmoil11 have

12 nonetheless taken up the mantle of anti-corruption advocates, and in many cases these have been active in medium- to high-corruption countries (e.g., PricewaterhouseCoopers 2011).

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu advertises on its web pages that

Our Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) consulting practice helps to implement a compliance program for domestic and foreign anti-bribery and corruption regulations such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 in the United States. We also investigate group companies in each country to identify potential FCPA violations such as bribery in local business practices. If “red flags” are identified, we will expand all aspects of research to locate the issue and support the development of measures to prevent a recurrence (Deloitte n.d.).

Many of the high profile corruption trials have employed one or more of the remaining ‘Four

Sisters’ to substantiate their cases.

Examining Seven Countries across National Rankings

The selection of following examination of cases of relatively higher levels of corruption and relatively lower levels of development and democracy is geared to examine the parameters of this relatively new pattern of corruption show trials. The five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and, a late addition, South Africa) are of central interest because of their potentially, if not currently powerful global economies, and their unique position as possessors of relatively high levels of corruption as indicated by

Transparency International’s (TI’s) Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and the Global

Corruption Barometer (GCB).12

The concept of the BRICS grouping, originally an invention in a study written by

Goldman Sachs economist and chair of their Asset Management division, Jim O’Neil, in

2001; it anticipated a massive global economic downturn (which eventually happened in

2008) and the major countries that would weather it, in his view, included the BRIC countries.13 By 2004 the BRIC countries were meeting to establish a special trading network, although tensions between them existed (e.g., India and China). In fact, all of the four original countries did well immediately following the 2008 crash, and had become responsible for over 50% of the world’s economic growth by 2011-2012. After a China-

Brazil-Russia economic decline in 2013,14 which occurred for separate reasons, their economic power and annual growth rates have diminished markedly.

The four BRIC countries, despite their recent economic downturns, have come to be regarded as new models of growth, countries beset with high levels of corruption and, at least periodically, periods of rapid economic growth; in other words, they are structurally sound, as was evident even in 2013 (Zirker and Baburkin 2013). Two high corruption countries,

Tanzania and Saudi Arabia, have been added to this study to provide insights through outliers, and recent high profile anti-corruption actions. Tanzania is significantly lower on the UNDP development scale, and Saudi Arabia significantly higher.

At first (and largely cursory) glance, international observers express approval of high profile corruption trials. BBC World Service, for example, lauded the conviction of two former government ministers in Tanzania without apparently deliberating at all on the flimsy evidence relayed in the charges, or the numerous delays leading to a seven-year trial and the convenient end of a presidential term. It simply reported that the trial, which was extraordinarily transparent as a political tactic, had proved that “the tax exemptions [weakly linked to the defendants, cost the government millions of dollars in lost revenues” (BBC

World Service 2015). Measures of perceptions of corruption (the CPI), of press freedom (the

Press Freedom Index) and several other related measures in seven mid- to high-corruption countries, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania and the BRICS countries, underscore the political nature of the corruption trials. In short, just how “anti-corruption” these putatively anti-corruption trials actually are obscures the wider contexts as well. Sometimes the trials, such as that in the Senate that removed President Dilma Rousseff from the presidency following her impeachment by the Chamber of Deputies in Brazil in 2016, are only very obliquely related to corruption because the prosecuting parties were, if anything, more clearly guilty of

14 corruption than was their defendant. The Saudi arrests in 2017 were not even linked to judicial proceedings.

Brazil: A Coup under the Guise of Anti-Corruption Prosecutions?

The removal of President Dilma Rousseff through impeachment and conviction in the

Senate in 2016 was not formally based on charges of corruption. Although Brazil had been caught up in a firestorm of corruption scandals over the previous two decades (e.g., Zirker and Reddinger, 2003), and most notably after 2014 in the “Car Wash” scandal (Lava Jato) legislative corruption scandal, the charges against Rousseff involved shifting parastatal budgets into the federal budget to make the latter appear stronger, an action that, although illegal, previous presidents had done with impunity. Rousseff was explicitly not corruption.15

A former leftist guerrilla during the 21-year military dictatorship, and a social democrat, she had slipped to single digit popularity ratings by 2016, stemming from the traumatic economic recession that had hit the country after 2012, and many Brazilians called for an extra- constitutional change of government. Her supporters, mostly in her leftist Workers’ Party

(PT), regarded her removal from the presidency in 2016 as a coup d’êtat (Rovai 2016).

The upcoming 2018 presidential election had only one popular candidate by 2016,

Dilma’s mentor and founder of the PT, the leftist union leader, former President Luiz Inácio

Lula da Silva, known to Brazilians as Lula. He was initially possessed of a 42 % preference for president among the 20 or so candidates, the next highest of whom, an extreme right-wing former military officer implicated in torture during the 21-year dictatorship (1964-1985), Jair

Bolsonaro, who had single digit popularity. Lula had been a centrist president and had left office in 2010 with the highest popularity rating of any Brazilian president in modern times.

The corruption trial of Lula in 2017-18 was unprecedented in it reach, and was linked to other prosecutions surrounding the Brazilian construction giant, Odebrecht (BBC World

Service 2018). Prior to the 2010, and despite literally hundreds of major corruption scandals,

15 the expulsion from Congress of PT leader, and former chief-of-staff to Lula, José Dirceu, there had been almost virtually no prosecutions in Brazil for high-level corrupt practices.

Beginning in this decade, however, a series of convictions, significantly but not exclusively involving the president’s PT party, led to numerous lengthy prison terms, and virtually eviscerated the PT. In 2016 Dirceu was sentenced to 26 years in prison on corruption charges.

The evidence against Lula, including an alleged gift of an apartment in Rio to which he may never have visited and did not legally own, as well as other “scanty evidence,” resulted in to a sentence, imposed by federal judge Sergio Moro (after a trial that was perhaps charitably called a “kangaroo court proceeding” [Weisbrot 2018]), of over 9 years in prison and disqualification from any political position for 10 years. Interestingly, Moro was subsequently awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Law by Notre Dame University in the

United States. That same honor had earlier been bestowed upon Lula (Barcellos 2018).

Brazil ranked surprisingly higher on the CPI than the other three BRIC countries prior to

2016. It has subsequently dropped significantly.

India under Modi

A number of apparently political corruption trials occurred in India in the early part of this decade (Montlake 2011), although India’s ranking in the CPI continued to drop. With the accession to power of populist Narendra Modi, the number of corruption trials have reached into the many thousands. There do not seem to be many that could conceivably be linked to an ulterior political agenda. Other tactics, including the removal of and re-issuing of high denomination currency, with the view to ending high profile tax avoidance, has been seen to be ineffective at best, although perceptions of corruption have diminished to some extent. Can we blame the relative restraint in the use of high-profile corruption trials to accomplish political ends?

China and the Forging of a New Dynasty?

Xi Jinping has pursed anti-corruption policies with a good deal of commitment, although, again, the salience of potential political rivals as defendants is noteworthy. Bo Xilai, one of the Chinese mandarins and a former mayor of Dalian, followed by a term as governor of

Liaoning, and then from 2004 to 2007, Minister of Commerce. Bo was tried and convicted of corruption as the current president of China, Xi Jin Ping began his consolidation of power.

Bo had last served as a member of the Politburo, and was Communist Party Secretary of

Chongqing (2007-2013), was the son of Bo Yibo, one of the Eight Elders of the Communist

Party of China, was thus regarded as one of the select "princelings," and hence represented an immediate rival to Xi’s consolidation of power. As Gracie (2017) put it in a BBC report,

“Five years ago, China's most charismatic politician was toppled from power. His disgrace allowed his great rival to dominate the political stage in a way unseen in China since the days of Chairman Mao.” Although Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, was convicted of the murder of a British businessman, after a confession, Bo’s charges represented a familiar pattern: “the charge sheet—bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power—was the standard one used against a

Communist Party boss. It was a classic Chinese political takedown” (Gracie, 2017).

In 2017, Sun Zhengcai, a rising star in the Politburo and an apparent contender for power, was convicted of corruption and indiscipline and removed from power. As noted in an article in the Guardian,

“Sun Zhengcai’s major problem was not corruption or womanising [the official charges against him] but failure to profess full loyalty to Xi Jinping” said China expert Willy Lam, noting that the investigation was concluded unusually fast compared to similar cases (Agence France-Presse 2017).

Writing in 2103, shortly after Xi came to power, in an article for the Brookings Institution, noted that

Many watchers of the Chinese leadership have become dispirited by a lack of substantive progress toward much-needed political reform, while Chinese public intellectuals have been dismayed by orders instructing them not to speak about seven sensitive issues: universal values, freedom of the

press, civil society, civil rights, past mistakes by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), crony capitalism, and judicial independence (Li and McElveen 2013).

Other corruption trials in Xi’s China have likewise removed established elites and paved the way for the growing power of Xi Jinping.

Russia: A Classic Case?

Vladimir Putin, the long-term authoritarian leader of Russia, has routinely used high- profile corruption trials over the past decade to reinforce the position of the power elite. A recent major corruption trial is emblematic of his anti-corruption approach to strategic politics. A former economy minister, Alexei Ulyukayev, was convicted of receiving a $2 million bribe from a former close Putin ally, Igor Sechin (DW News, 2017). As a Reuters correspondent put it in a Chicago Tribune article in late 2017,

Alexei Ulyukayev, the highest-ranking Russian official to be arrested since 1993, was detained last year at the headquarters of Russia's largest oil producer, the state-owned Rosneft, after a sting operation by Russia's main intelligence agency. Prosecutors say he accepted a $2 million bribe from Rosneft's influential CEO, Igor Sechin, for giving the company the green light for privatizing another oil firm. The circumstances of the case have ignited speculation that Ulyukayev was caught in a Kremlin power play against Sechin, a longtime associate of President Vladimir Putin (Vasilyeva 2017).

Except for the foreign speculation, the trial looks like a high-profile case of overt bribery. Were it not for earlier trials, including the 2013 trial of Alexei Navalny, a popular opposition candidate for Mayor of Moscow (BBC World Service 2013), and a second case against in 2017, this case might be thought of as an attempt to rid Russia of corrupt racists. As Mirovalev (2017) put it in recent coverage of Navalny’s second trial in the Los Angeles Times, “Navalny's anti-migrant rhetoric, along with his participation in ultranationalist rallies frequented by neo-Nazis and white supremacists, alienated some of Russia's liberal democrats.”

The Case of Basil Mramba and Daniel Yona in Tanzania

The Honourable Basil Mramba was a founding member of the ruling Chama Cha

Mapinduzi (CCM), the ruling (and only legal) political party in Tanzania until the mid-1990s.

He was a long-term member of the Bunge (Tanzanian Parliament), former Minister of

Finance, former Minister of Industry and Trade, District Commissioner, and by 2008, when he was arrested for corruption in a gold assaying case, he was a perennial potential political rival for executive appointment in the CCM, having been close and served as an MP and government minister under the first three presidents, Julius Kambarage Nyerere (1962-1985),

Ali Hassan Mwinyi, (1985-1995), and Benjamin William Mkapa (1995 – 2005). Although all presidents have come from the CCM,16 they represent different factions of the party, and the accession to the presidency of Jakaya Kikwete (2005-2015) represented a far greater sensitivity to global concerns,17 and perhaps the introduction of a new ruling cadre within the

CCM. Mramba and Daniel Yona’s trial (also a former senior minister in the CCM government), was based on an assumption that tax-free status granted to a Scottish assaying firm, one that they had apparently been directed from the presidency to grant, had cost the country millions of dollars. Although there was no concrete evidence of revenue loss, or even that any revenue had been lost, the two former ministers were subjected to humiliating treatment, denial of their rights to produce counter evidence, and regular delays extending their trial over seven years. The trial was rapidly concluded on the eve of a presidential election that spelled the end of Kikwete’s 10-year terms in office, the two former ministers were convicted and then humiliated with an unprecedented public trip in an open vehicle to prison, and then, on appeal, granted a commutation to community service in a public place, and further humiliation mopping floors in a hospital. In a country where the elite were almost universally involved in corrupt practices, this trial set an interesting precedent.

Saudi Arabia: Targeted Anti-Corruption Arrests or the End of a Corrupt Era?

After decades of policy opacity, a new pretender to the throne, Mohammed Bin Salman has shaken up the court elite with arrests and detention for corruption of 201 suspects, many of them royal princes.

His unusual methods of dealing with corruption drew the attention of world media when authorities arrested 201 suspects last November, including 11 senior princes and sitting and

former ministers, and locked them up in five-star hotels throughout the country, including the Ritz- Carlton in Riyadh (OCCRP 2018).

By all accounts this does not appear to be a power play. Salman is already ensconced as the pretender to the throne, and there appears to be a genuine attempt to balance a budget in deficit by recapturing vast sums of resources. There is very little evidence of prosecutions of elites for corruption in Saudi Arabia, and, in fact, once resources have been recaptured it would appear unlikely that there will be any in this case. Saudi Arabia’s high level of development and strongly authoritarian system would appear to attenuate the need of power contenders to use corruption trials for political purposes.

Rankings as a Measurement of Corruption in an Age of Show Trials

Examining national rankings in the general area of secrecy and openness (via the

Press Freedom rankings), the quality of life and development (via the UNDP Human

Development rankings), and perceptions of corruption (via TI’s CPI), none of which have maintained internally consistent algorithms or a consistent number of countries in the rankings over the past decades, presenting a computational challenge. The following three analyses, then, will the countries’ rankings and total rankings computed in each year, followed by the division of the ranking by total countries ranked by year (to gain a percentage of the position of the ranking in the whole set), and, in two cases, subtraction of the percentage (expressed decimally) from 1.0, to provide a higher scores for lower press freedom, for rankings by year in the CPI, and for lower UNDP development levels. The idea is to provide the basis for a comparable index based upon international rankings in these three areas.

The first two tables examine rankings in selected years of the CPI. Table 2.0 examines the division of each CPI ranking by the total number of countries ranked that year with a view to establishing the percentage (expressed decimally) of each score.

TABLE 1.0 Corruption Perceptions Index Ranks of Select Countries, by total Countries CPI CPI CPI CPI CPI Country Country Country Country Country Rank Rank Rank Rank Rank 2000 2007 2012 2015 2017 Tanzania 76/90 94/179 102/174 117/167 103/180 Brazil 49/90 72/179 69/174 76/167 96/180 China 63/90 72/179 80/174 83/167 77/180 Russia 82/90 143/179 133/174 119/167 135/180 India 69/90 72/179 94/174 76/167 81/180 South 34/90 43/179 69/174 61/167 71/180 Africa Saudi n.d. 79/179 66/174 48/167 57/18 Arabia Source: https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results Table 2.0: CPI Ranking Divided by Total Rankings

Saudi Tanzania Brazil China Russia India S.Africa Arabia

0.84 0.54 0.7 0.91 0.77 0.38 CPI 2000 0.53 0.4 0.4 0.8 0.4 0.24 0.44 CPI 2007 0.59 0.4 0.46 0.76 0.54 0.4 0.38 CPI 2012 0.7 0.46 0.49 0.71 0.46 0.37 0.29 CPI 2015 0.57 CPI 2017 0.53 0.43 0.75 0.45 0.39 0.32 Source: https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results

Figure 1.0--CPI Ranking Divided by Total # of Countries in CPI Survey (higher score = comparatively higher perceived corruption) 1

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0 Tanzania Brazil China Russia India S.Africa Saudi Arabia

CPI 2000 CPI 2007 CPI 2012 CPI 2015 CPI 2017

TABLE 3.0 World* Press Freedom Rankings COUNTRIES Press Freedom Press Freedom Press Freedom Press Freedom Index Rankings Index Rankings Index Rankings Index Rankings 2002 2007 2011-12 2018 Tanzania 62/139 55/169 34/179 93/180 Brazil 54/139 84/169 99/179 102/180 China 138/139 163/169 174/179 176/180 Russia 121/139 144/169 142/179 148/180 India 80/139 120/169 131/179 138/180 South Africa 26/139 43/169 42/179 28/180 Saudi Arabia 125/139 148/169 n.d. 169/180 *In 2007 the name was “Worldwide Press Freedom” Sources: Reporters without Borders, World Press Freedom Index, 2002: https://rsf.org/en/ranking/2002 Reporters without Borders, Worldwide Press Freedom Index, 2007: https://rsf.org/en/worldwide-press-freedom-index-2007 Reporters without Borders, World Press Freedom Index, 2011-2012: https://rsf.org/en/world-press-freedom-index-20112012 Reporters without Borders, World Press Freedom Index, 2018: https://rsf.org/en/ranking

Table 4.0: Press Freedom Rankings Divided by Totals Minus 1 Press Press Press Press Freedom Freedom Freedom Freedom Index Index Index Index Ranking by Ranking by Ranking by Ranking by Total 2002 Total 2007 Total 2011- Total 2018 12

Tanzania 0.55 0.68 0.81 0.52 Brazil 0.61 0.5 0.45 0.48 China 0.01 0.04 0.03 0.02 Russia 0.13 0.15 0.21 0.18 India 0.42 0.29 0.27 0.23 S. Africa 0.81 0.75 0.77 0.84 S. 0.1 0.12 0.07 Arabia

Figure 2.0 Percent Ranking by total Minus 1 Higher Scores = Higher Press Freedom 1 0.8 0.6

0.4 0.2 0 Tanzania Brazil China Russia India S. Africa S. Arabia

Press Freedom Index Ranking by Total 2002 Press Freedom Index Ranking by Total 2007 Press Freedom Index Ranking by Total 2011-12 Press Freedom Index Ranking by Total 2018

Table 4.0: UNDP Human Development Index Rankings by Total Rankings COUNTRIES 1990 Human 2000 Human 2016 Human UNDP Access to Dev. Index Dev. Index Dev. Index Profile of Information Rank Rank Rank Political Life Flows UNDP Rank, 2000 Human Dev. HDR Report Report 2000 Tanzania 95/130 156/174 151/188 156/174 156/174 Brazil 50/130 74/174 79/188 74/174 99/174 China 64/130 99/174 90/188 99/174 99/174 Russia n.d. 62/174 49/188 62/174 62/174 India 93/130 128/174 131/188 128/174 128/174 South Africa 62/130 103/174 119/188 103/174 103/174 Saudi Arabia 66/130 75/174 38/188 75/174 75/174 Sources: Human Development Report 2016; Human Development for Everyone: http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2016_human_development_report.pdf. Human Development Report 2000; Human Rights and Human Development: http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-report- 2000. Human Development Report 1990: http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/219/hdr_1990_en_complete_nostats.pdf

Table 5.0: Human Development Index Ranking Divided by Totals Minus 1 1990 Human 2000 2016 UNDP Access to Develop. Index Human Human Profile of Info Flows Rank/Total Develop. Develop. 2000 Pol by Rank Minus 1 Index Index Life Rank UNDP Rank/Total Rank/Total by Total Human Dev. Minus 1 Minus 1 Minus 1 Report 2000 UNDP Dev Index rank by total Minus 1 Tanzania 0.26 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.1 Brazil 0.62 0.57 0.58 0.57 0.43 China 0.51 0.43 0.52 0.43 0.43 Russia 0.64 0.74 0.64 0.64 India 0.28 0.26 0.3 0.26 0.26 S. Africa 0.52 0.41 0.37 0.41 0.41 S. 0.49 0.57 0.8 0.57 0.57 Arabia

Figure 3.0--UNDP Rankings by Total Minus 1 Higher Number = Higher Rank 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 Tanzania Brazil China Russia India S. Africa S. Arabia

1990 Human Develop. Index Rank/TotalMinus 1

2000 Human Develop. Index Rank/Total Minus 1

2016 Human Develop. Index Rank/Total Minus 1

UNDP Profile of 2000 Pol Life Rank by Total Minus 1 UNDP Dev Index rank by total Minus 1

There are a number of possible interpretations of the data listed in the Figures and

Tables (above). Higher Development Index scores plus lower press freedom scores seems to correlate with higher perceived corruption scores and a tendency for corruption show trials for political purposes, although a good deal more work should be done on this, and these appear likely to some extent in all higher corruption settings.

Conclusions: Intensifying Corrupt Practices through Anti-Corruption Activities?

The secretive nature of corruption makes it very difficult to measure, and even more difficult to prosecute. Major high-level corruption trials typically take the tact that they have privileged information that is grounded, if not thoroughly verified, and that the court, and the wider population of interested observers, should “trust” them. When press freedom is relatively weak and, as in the seven countries observed herein, declining, that trust is easily exploited. In an ironic twist, we find ourselves examining evidence that implicates unenlightened self-interest as the real defendants in many of these prosecutions. Politics, what Harold Lasswell identified as “who gets what, when and how,” seems to explain many

24 of them. Global pressures to show progress in prosecuting corruption, then, may lead to further corruption. Some patterns seem to emerge, however, as Table 6.0 suggests:

Table 6.0: Making Sense of the Corruption of Anti-Corruption Authoritarian System with Authoritarian and/or Limitied Authoritarian of limited high development rankings Democracies with mid-level democracies with very low development levels development rankings Higher Corruption trials have Following a multitude Periodic pressures to Perceptions of Corruption tend to be very rare of unprosecuted engage in corruption show (CPI and may not have corruption scandals, trials, periodic episodes Rankings) political or power introduction of leading to institutionally struggle implications corruption trials as an mandated, politically even now: Saudi increasingly vital part chaotic ‘scandal clusters’ Arabia and Russia of the chaotic political and consequent trials (the contest: Brazil, China ‘Watergate syndrome’): Tanzania, India Lower Corruption trials High-profile corruption Perceptions of Corruption introduced with anti- trials designed (CPI mid- corruption agencies primarily to remediate range (fear of Pandora’s Box corruption: South Rankings) Syndrome) Africa

There are also undoubtedly positive side-effects in the manipulative use of anti- corruption prosecutions to remove political rivals. Although the cynical employment of such legal prosecutions direct attention at, and immediately undermine rival politicians, they also focus attention on corrupt practices and the need for the remediation of wider corruption.

Recent events in Malaysia, where ultra-conservative prosecution of alleged corruption and sexual crimes led to the imprisonment of a former prime minister, the tables were turned after several years, and the arrest and indictment of that opportunistic politician once out of office has set a precedent, at least in this case. The road to hell may well be paved with good intentions, as the saying goes, but it must be added that a proliferation of such “good intentions” does not necessarily change that route.

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ENDNOTES

1 It is admitted by some critics of corruption that it can serve a positive developmental role in some cases. See, for example, Friedrich, 1972: 128. 2 As Bauhr noted, “the need and greed distinction challenges the basic assumption of the central traditional theoretical understanding of the problem of corruption, the principal– agent framework” (Bauhr 2012: 69) 3 One of them relies on the perceptions of a panel of academics. 4 Lambsdorff and others have emphasised that it is business people who first and most intensely feel the pressures of corruption, and hence are the best indicators (through their perceptions) of the relative level of corruption in a given country. 5 An expectation of gift-giving, in fact, can be translated facilely into a rationalisation of bribery. Taito Philip Field, the first New Zealand MP to be convicted and imprisoned for corruption, proclaimed at his trial that New Zealanders simply did not understand the time-honoured Pacific tradition of gift-giving. The Supreme Court, which later unanimously rejected his appeal, said that any gift-giving to officials with the power to influence a relevant case represented corruption. 6 Mary Anne Thompson, in her 2008 immigration department scandal, was found to have practiced criminal nepotism in attempting to gain residency to New Zealand for her Pacific island family members. 7 By virtù, Machiavelli actually meant the ruler’s ability to think and act effectively and intelligently to get what he wanted, presumably survival. As Machiavelli noted, a prince cannot do good if he/she does not survive. 8 Following the collapse of the auditing/accounting wing of Arthur Andersen in the Waste Management scandal of 1998.

9 Only two countries as of late 2017 had failed to ratify, or sign an intent to ratify, the UNCaC: Barbados and Syria. 10 E.g., the (Texas) Waste Management Scandal of 1998, the Enron scandal of 2001, the WorldCom scandal of 2002, the Tyco scandal of 2002, the HealthSound scandal of 2003, the Freddie Mac scandal of 2003, the AIG scandal of 2005, the Lehman Brothers scandal of 2008, the Bernie Madoff scandal of 2008, and the Satyam scandal 2009. 11 Arthur Andersen LLP was formerly one of the “Big Five” global accounting firms, along with surviving members PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young, and KPMG, and was obliged to end its role in international accounting of public companies following its key participation in the 1998 Waste Management scandal. The remaining companies have actively advocated for compliance with anti-corruption legislation. 12 In the post-WWII era, rampant corruption has not been evident in the major economic powers until now. 13 Minus South Africa, which was added to the BRIC countries, by invitation from them, in 2010. 14 India has largely been spared. 15 As many as half of the members of Congress, including the Vice-President, José Temer, were facing possible corruption charges, making it rather awkward for them to charge a largely uncorrupt president with corruption. 16 The precursors to the CCM, the Tanganyika African National Union on the mainland and the Afro-Shirazi Party on Zanzibar, were merged in 1977 to create the CCM. 17 Kikwete had played an important role in negotiations between Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2013, for example. He was the first president to have had military training as well as education at the University of Dar es Salaam, a school noted for its activism.