NEW DELHI – India is among the lowest scoring countries on political finance regulation, according to a new report. Global Integrity Report for 2011 released on Friday, indicates that developing as well as developed countries, including the US, are equally struggling to effectively implement money-in-politics rules.
Global Integrity is an international non-profit organisation which tracks governance and corruption trends in the world.
The Election Commission in India has instituted measures to create enhanced transparency and closer scrutiny of financing and election expenses. It is pushing the government for electoral reforms that help track sources of political funding.
The country dismally performed on individual candidate financing and scored a paltry 28. It scored 45 on Conflicts of Interest Safeguards & Checks and Balances in judicial Branch. Paltry a 28 out 100 on the legal framework.
India scored 0 out of 100 on implementation and disclosure of political party and candidate financing information to the public, an aspect that is non-existent.
Also a 0 on effectiveness of its modest party financing regulations, while the set of regulations per se received a score of 67 out 100.
The country dismally performed on individual candidate financing and scored a paltry 20 out 100 on the legal framework. It scored 46 on Law Enforcement: Conflicts of Interest Safeguards and Professionalism.
Overall India scored a weak rating of 70/100. Its Legal Framework hit 87 points while implementation of law scored even a weaker 55 out of 100.
“We remain deeply concerned by the lack of progress globally on effectively regulating the flow of large sums of private money into the elections process in many countries,” said Global Integrity’s executive director, Nathaniel Heller.
The report also states, “anti-corruption agencies often fail to fulfil expectations. Many anti-corruption agencies assessed in 2011 are heavily politicised and are not independent from the governments they are ostensibly tasked with monitoring.”
The United States scored just 29 out of 100 on the effectiveness of its party financing regulations and 25 in its ability to effectively regulate contributions made to individual political candidates.
Those scores represent a significant decrease from 2009, the last year Global Integrity covered the US, and reflect the negative impact of the “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision in early-2010 that loosened the controls over private money flowing into US elections.
In Asia, countries assessed have earned modest overall scores, except Vietnam, which earned poor ratings with large implementation gaps, particularly in Azerbaijan, highlighted as a “concern” for all countries in the region.
