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Articles on Political corruption

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Members of the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa, the country’s largest union, march to highlight high unemployment. Reuters/Rogan Ward

South Africans need to fight for change on the streets, and through the ballot

With the local government elections set to take place within the next seven months, it is worth considering what impact the recent upsurge in protests will have on the country’s political future.
Malawian President Peter Mutharika has promised to fight the corruption that has seen donors withdraw their support for his impoverished nation. Reuters/Eldson Chagara

What drives corruption in Malawi and why it won’t disappear soon

Malawi appears to have learnt nothing from the biggest state corruption scandal that rocked the country two years ago, leading to donors withdrawing their support. The same conditions still remain.
Tony Abbott opens the campaign office for Liberal candidate Ken Wyatt in 2010. Now he and all incumbent MPs enjoy a $300,000 advantage over their challengers at the next election. AAP/Dean Lewins

Budget’s $45m slush fund for MPs is an unethical use of public money

‘Better Communities’ funding is supposedly non-partisan: every electorate gets $300,000 for local projects. But only incumbent MPs have a say in this spending and 60% of them are government members.
Under former president Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan was little more than a ‘vertically integrated criminal organisation’, according to a new book. EPA/Parwiz Sabawoon

Book review: Thieves of State – Why Corruption Threatens Global Security

Corruption can directly contribute to the growth of the very forces the world’s security agencies are desperately trying to contain and combat.
Wayne Goss claims victory in the 1989 Queensland election, when Labor won government after 32 years in opposition. AAP/Queensland ALP

Wayne Goss, a modernising leader who left Queensland a better place

Thank you, Queensland. You’ve been good to me. I hope I’ve left you a better place. So said Wayne Goss as he resigned the role of premier on February 19, 1996. He had served since the election in December…
“Who do you trust?” has become a common mantra in Australian politics. Our political leaders should do much more to stop the answer being “no one”. AAP Image/Julian Smith

How to restore trust in politics after the Victorian election

A fundamental lack of trust is at the heart of Australian politicians’ extremely poor reputation. It is the main reason why people’s opinions about their elected representatives have mutated from healthy…
A ‘national ICAC’, which the Greens recently proposed in response to the revelations in NSW, would be fraught with difficulties if implemented. AAP/Lukas Coch

A national ICAC? We need better anti-corruption bodies, not more

The corruption scandals facing New South Wales politics are about as complex as they come. The sheer number of investigations, seemingly involving a conveyer belt of familiar faces, have made the question…
Ritzy red wine has come to represent political influence-peddling in the resignation of NSW premier Barry O'Farrell. AAP/Julian Smith

O'Farrell resignation: red wine, political blood and cultural memory

Political scandals, the perennial product of the grinding gears of greed and governance, proliferate in the age of digital media, the 24-hours news cycle and anti-corruption bodies with wide powers. Constant…
NSW premier Barry O'Farrell has fallen victim to the state’s ICAC, resigning his post earlier today over a ‘memory fail’ in the evidence he gave before it. AAP/Dan Himbrechts

History repeats: how O'Farrell and Greiner fell foul of ICAC

Today, the New South Wales Independent Commission into Corruption (ICAC) claimed its biggest political scalp in two decades. Liberal state premier Barry O’Farrell resigned after what he has described as…
Onward and upward? Guess which is which. EPA/Ntswe Mokoena

While Mugabe cleans house, Zuma repeats old mistakes

At the end of 2012, I published a deliberately surreal novel entitled Joseph Kony and the Titans of Zagreb. In it, using satire and magic realism, I tied together the corrupt destinies of figures on both…
I’d just like to thank my Cabinet colleagues for their fulsome support… PA Wire

Dear Maria Miller, it really wasn’t all your fault

The news that Maria Miller decided to resign as culture secretary was not really much of a surprise. The only real surprise was the way that she had seemed to be toughing out the media feeding frenzy and…
Getting mighty crowded: 800m is a lot of people to get to the polls. EPA/Jagadeesh NV

Social media scrutiny promises a cleaner election in India

The first set of Indian constituencies goes to the polls on April 7 in what has been described as “the biggest election ever seen”. The scale of organisation needed to co-ordinate this democratic exercise…

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