MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Political parties and corruption.

In half of 64 countries polled public opinion believes that political parties are the institutions most affected by corruption, according to a report from Transparency International, TI, released this Thursday.

Political parties from Latinamerica, India, Indonesia and certain European former Soviet countries figure at the top of the list.

More specifically political parties in Ecuador are the worst classified by the local population, followed by Argentina, Brazil, Peru and India. Other countries with a similar public opinion standing are, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Indonesia and Ukraine. However at the other end of the list, that is the most honest, figure Holland, Singapore and Albania.

Transparency International a Non Government Organization with offices in Berlin assesses the level of corruption worldwide and this Thursday released its preliminary World Corruption Barometer 2004, in coincidence with the United Nations Anti Corruption International Day.

The report indicates that corruption continues to be a world plague in many places, in many countries and economic and social sectors suffer the negative consequences of this extended practice", said Daniel Lebegue, head of the French chapter of TI.

Mr. Lebegue called upon governments to ratify the UN Convention Against Corruption which will help restore assets and properties stolen by politicians and simultaneously speed the extradition of corrupt leaders and officials.

The IT report was elaborated on the basis of 50,000 interviews in 64 different countries undertaken by Gallup International.

Behind political parties the most corrupt institutions are Parliaments, Customs Officials, Police Forces and the Judiciary branch.

On a rating 1 to 5 (with 1 free of corruption), the institutions considered less corrupt are religious (2,7), NGO (2,8) and the Army (2,9).

The complete report can be read at: www.transparency.org