Russia most corrupt among global powers, study says; U.S. ranking also worsens

The Washington Post

MOSCOW - Corruption in Russia has grown even more blatant over the past year, according to a report issued Tuesday by Transparency International, and the country has fallen from 146th place to 154th on the organization's Corruption Perceptions Index.

Russia tied with Tajikistan, Papua New Guinea and several African countries, and was ranked most corrupt among the G-20 nations.

For the first time since Transparency International began issuing its annual list 15 years ago, the United States dropped out of the top 20 least-corrupt nations, because of financial scandals it has endured. The United States fell from 19th place to 22nd, behind Chile.

Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore topped the list as least corrupt, and Somalia was at the bottom, just below Afghanistan and Burma.

The rankings come as Moscow is moving closer to joining the World Trade Organization, and as President Dmitry Medvedev hopes to foster a new high-tech industry that would make Russia a digital leader.

"How can a country claiming to be a world leader, claiming to be a major energy power, be in such a position?" asked Yelena Panfilova, director of the Moscow office of Transparency International. "It's a situation of national shame."

There is, she said, a "catastrophic gap" between civil society and "state sabotage." Corruption is everywhere - in hospitals and in schools, in utilities and in the corps of traffic police - but Panfilova said Russia is falling ever more deeply down the international list because of a sense of immunity in the higher levels of the government.

There is no shortage of laws, instructions, orders or publications against corruption, "but they don't work," she said. "Where are the results?"

Last October, Medvedev launched a "Forward Russia" campaign against corruption, but by July he acknowledged that it had achieved no results. He complains that government ministers don't follow through on his orders, and this, said Yuli Nisnevich, chief researcher for Transparency International in Russia, is a consequence of corruption.

The authorities have constructed a closed state in which ordinary Russians have no role to play, Nisnevich said, but as a result they have lost control to corruption, even though they don't realize it yet.

"As long as society does not participate in the fight," he said, "the fight cannot be won."