NEWSWEEK

Jan 19, 2008

In the last few months, developing countries from South Africa to South Korea and from Kenya to Thailand held open elections. And an alarming trend ran through them all: the favorites were dogged by corruption charges—yet voters picked them anyway.

The winners didn't just squeak by. Last month, South Korea's Lee Myung Bak crushed the ruling-party candidate by more than 20 percent, despite allegations of stock manipulation against him. A proxy party for Thailand's former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra also won big, even though Thaksin had to campaign from exile in London, having been overthrown by the military and charged with using his office for sweetheart deals. And South Africa's Jacob Zuma beat Thabo Mbeki for the leadership of the African National Congress, making him heir apparent for the presidency—despite claims he'd pocketed $170,000 from a French arms maker (he's since been formally indicted). In each case, the loser's record was cleaner. Yet it didn't help.

There are several reasons voters embraced the accused. Thaksin, for example, is seen as a democratic champion of the poor, who dismiss his charges as cooked up by the junta. Still, this string of victories came in a year that, according to Transparency International (TI), was corruption's worst on record. In Asia, for example, 22 percent of those polled reported having had to pay a bribe in the past 12 months, up from 15 percent in 2006. In Africa the figure was 46 percent.

Many voters sensed this turn: TI reports that as incidents of corruption grew more common, so did expectations of it. Worldwide, 54 percent now expect corruption to increase in the future, up from 43 percent in 2003. That figure is 47 percent in South Korea, 66 percent in Thailand and 67 percent in South Africa. Overall, only one in five respondents thinks things will improve. How do these numbers connect to the elections? One disturbing possibility is that graft and bribery are now so common in developing nations that voters suspect all candidates are tainted, which neutralizes corruption as an election issue. But such cynicism is dangerous: while a few countries like Bangladesh or China have managed to boom despite serious corruption, it has held back many other states, choking business and deterring investment. Yet voters continue to look the other way. The next big test: Taiwan, where Ma Ying-Jeou is challenging the ruling party's Frank Hsieh. Both have been accused of corruption, though the charges against Hsieh seem more likely to stick. Which means, if recent history is any guide, he's where the smart money is betting.
—Jonathan Tepperman