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June 2 - June 9, 2002 |
Fighting corruption
Italian Senator Antonio Di Pietro offers advice
By Angelo Persichilli
Originally Published: 2002-05-26
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Senator Antonio Di Pietro
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We always thought that the Canadian political system had many problems, but seldom that it was corrupt. Recently, however, one of the words echoing in Parliament is "corruption". A Leger Marketing survey confirmed last month that 70 per cent of Canadians now think that our political system is indeed corrupt.
Many people ask disquieting questions about whether corruption really exists in Canada. But to answer those questions, one needs to know what exactly corruption is and what are its telltale signs. On these issues, we interviewed a former Italian prosecutor who became a symbol of the struggle against corruption in his country, Senator Antonio Di Pietro.
Can you define corruption for us, and help us identify it within a given system?
"Political corruption has two aspects. There is corruption of individual politicians, and there is systemic corruption of whole parties. Parties in Italy draw their funding in part from private donors and in part from the State. In reality, in most Western countries, they tried and expanded their funding in order to boost their political propaganda. In short, they went from political organizations to political enterprises, adopting a businesslike attitude; they needed to advertise their 'product' in order to 'sell' it as widely as possible. This required money, a lot of money, to advertise, to project an image of power and opulence, to pay for offices and staff. Some parties created a 'friendly circle' of businessmen and entrepreneurs. These people ran businesses that did not compete on the free market with their own merits, productivity, know-how, etc. Their only strength was to be 'friends of friends', friends of politicians."
How does it work?
"Very simply. These companies offer a part of their revenues to the political world. This illicit exchange between politics and business generated obfuscation both in the procedures for assigning public works to private companies and in the fundraising for parties. Occasionally, even clarity does not solve the problem of lobbies paying a political party in exchange for political favours."
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