To the Secretary
Page 23
When it comes to corruption, Bulgaria is far from the worst. In 2015 the country ranked sixty-ninth—less than halfway down Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for 2015, where it is tied with Jamaica. The annually published rankings are a composite index based on a combination of surveys and assessments of how people view a country’s public sector. Of course, the United States itself does not come with clean hands. It ranked sixteenth in 2015, tied with Austria in this 168-country index. The Scandinavian countries vie for first place; Afghanistan, Somalia, and North Korea bring up the rear.7
Why does it matter? Corruption is a barrier to economic development and foreign investment. It is expensive—in some cases consuming a sizable percentage of a country’s GDP. Public works projects offer telling illustrations of this type of corruption-driven inflation. A World Bank report estimates that it costs three to six times as much to build a road on the Russian side of the border than on the Finnish side, despite a similar climate.8 In 2007, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympics would cost $12 billion. But at the 2014 event, the reported cost of $50 billion got almost as much ink as the athletes.9
Corruption ought to matter to the U.S. government because it robs U.S. businesses of public tenders from around the world for everything from fighter jets to nuclear power plants—projects that they might otherwise win on merit. In countries struggling to forge a civil society, it undermines public confidence in democracy. Respect for public officials and institutions plummets. The rule of law founders under the weight of corrupt police and court systems. As criminals muscle in, space opens for organized crime, and the possibility of meaningful partnerships with governments grows remote. Trafficking in drugs, weapons, and people pits the United States against potential allies. Given increasingly global connections, organized crime and money laundering funds more mischief and, occasionally, even terrorism. The coopted country stalls out.
The cables suggest that embassies believed corruption was a major impediment to American foreign policy initiatives. Yet it is unclear that policymakers focused on terrorism understood how thoroughly corruption thwarted cooperation. Corruption is an old story, and globalization has brought its economic and political consequences to the United States in ways that Washington leadership is only beginning to understand. Despite the number of embassy cables, policymakers did relatively little to confront the issue.
While corruption can suffuse all aspects of life, embassy reporting centered on three areas: elections—no surprise given the United States’ long-standing commitment to supporting democracy; procurement—especially important when U.S. firms are competing for public tenders; and organized crime—a clear threat to U.S. security, given the reach of illicit global networks. Officers also found time to highlight the ways a lack of good governance touches ordinary citizens—everything from a phony law degree in Pilsen to a Potemkin village in Turkmenistan.
YOUR VOTE COUNTS! (MAYBE)
Americans place great stock in elections as indicators of democracy and are heavily invested in seeing that other countries carry out elections that are free and fair. That finely resonating phrase has a meaning in the United States that doesn’t always translate overseas. The U.S. government, along with the international community and many NGOs, helps fund the cost of elections and training for local poll workers. The taxpayer-funded National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and its counterpart, the International Republican Institute, frequently serve overseas as election observers, and the Carter Center is only the best known among many NGOs that have made a reputation monitoring elections in struggling countries. They join a flotilla of international organizations, ranging from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to the Organization of American States to the African Union, all of whom attempt to monitor this most basic aspect of democracy. Observers only enter countries that want their presence, but most countries have a strong incentive to have their elections observed and characterized positively by international monitors. One might wonder how it is even possible to pull off electoral fraud, given all those international observers, modern technology, and social media.
Embassy personnel play a crucial role in elections. Their sustained presence in a country allows officers to build long-term contacts among various political parties and candidates. Their familiarity with local people, languages, and regions builds trust and provides perspective. Embassy officers frequently serve as on-the-ground election monitors. Occasionally their reporting offers eye-popping examples of the gap between Washington’s ideal of “free and fair” elections and what actually happens.
Embassy reporting on the 2010 Ukraine election (which brought Viktor Yanukovych to power) shows the dangers of attaching too much meaning to voting. The winner was deposed in 2014 after a six-month opposition campaign attracted worldwide attention (including that of Russian president Vladimir Putin). Given the disastrous aftermath of the coup, which led to civil war, a Russian invasion, loss of the Crimea, and continued unrest in the eastern part of the country, not to mention economic free fall, Ukraine offers a cautionary tale: elections in fundamentally nondemocratic places cannot be a measure of democracy.
Although the U.S. embassy in Kyiv clearly saw that the main issue in the election turned on whether Ukraine would cast its lot with Europe or Russia, reporting officers could not have realized how high the stakes would become. Yanukovych, born in the eastern Donetsk region and advocate of a pro-Russia policy, won against Yulia Tymoshenko, then prime minister and advocate of a closer relationship with the European Union. Tymoshenko lost 45.5 percent to 49 percent and alleged election fraud—charges that went nowhere. She was ultimately jailed for corruption by her rival Yanukovych while the EU negotiated behind the scenes for her release.
Yanukovych reneged on signing an EU association agreement in November 2014, an act that unleashed the Euromaidan, called the largest pro-European demonstration in the history of the European Union. The protests, which continued through February, were remarkable for the persistence of people willing to endure freezing weather, for the large turnout, and for the ensuing military intervention by Russia, which led to the loss of Crimea and the ongoing military skirmishes in the eastern part of Ukraine. As crowds gathered daily in Independence Square in Kyiv, the violent government reprisals resulted in the killings of hundreds of protestors and led to Yanukovych’s removal from office. The events have only heightened the urgency of the question of whether Ukraine belongs in the West or the East.
Such a dark future seemed unthinkable given the hopeful tenor of election day reporting in February 2010. Embassy officers painted colorful scenes, describing some voters traveling to precincts in horse-drawn sleighs. One woman slipped on ice outside the polling station and broke her leg. After a trip to the hospital and a cast, she sent her husband back to the precinct to ask for a mobile ballot box, throwing local election officials into confusion over how to accommodate her.10
Embassy reporters were warmly welcomed at the precincts. “Anxious PEC (Precinct Election Commission) members sometimes sought our reassurance that they were doing everything correctly; PEC members, domestic observers, and ordinary voters often asked how we thought the whole process was going.” However, officers also described devious ways in which fraud was perpetrated. The idea of planting pens filled with slowly disappearing ink—a stunt worthy of Mad magazine—was not beneath both sides, evidently.
The idea of disappearing ink occurred to both camps. In Bila Tserkva, where Yulia Tymoshenko took 69 percent of the vote, the problem of disappearing ink was not discovered at one precinct until the counting stage, when one-quarter of the ballots turned out to be blank. Embassy observers were treated to a Florida 2000 exercise in which grannies on the PEC held ballots up to the light trying to discern voter intent from indentations left by the pens with the disappearing ink. Local observers illuminating ballots with cigarette lighters barely avoided setting some of them on fire.11
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In Georgia, election task force members in 2008 also worried about hijinks with the voting pens, along with a nasty fight over stuffing ballot boxes and voter intimidation with slogans such as “To the Grave with Saakashvili,” and by “promoting tension by spreading propaganda about disappearing ink, taking photos of ballots, and waving around suspect protocols in front of the media.” 12
In Uzbekistan, elections in 2009 were so obviously unfree that the OSCE opted not to deploy a full election observation mission. The embassy used the opportunity to sketch the political climate in the country.
The GOU [government of Uzbekistan] approach is characterized by the paternalistic assumption that ordinary Uzbek citizens are not ready for real, “no holds barred” democracy. Accordingly, the parliamentary elections are a type of semi-democratic exercise wherein the government strictly limits the “variables” and then allows the elections themselves to proceed with little apparent interference. After first vetting very narrow parameters for candidacy and virtually guaranteeing that eventual parliamentarians will fully support the executive branch (if not completely agree with each other), the GOU made the elections themselves as technically correct as possible.
Although the GOU seems to miss the point of the most essential aspects of a democratic society, particularly a free press and robust political dialogue with opposing viewpoints, it tries to make up for its democratic shortcomings by focusing on minute details during the elections themselves. For example, our teams noted each polling station had a first aid room staffed by medical professionals, and a “mother and child” room stocked with toys, so that parents can comfortably vote without worrying about childcare. . . . Polling station officials generally appeared to be conscientious and committed if not downright enthusiastic. (One poloff noticed an election chairman removing his own eyeglasses and lending them to an elderly gentleman who was unable to read the ballot.)
The most obvious technical weakness on election day was the widespread practice of allowing a single family member to cast proxy ballots for all of the eligible voters in the family. Evidence of this practice was noted in every polling station that embassy observers visited. In many polling stations, there was not even an attempt to conceal this “family voting.” In full view of embassy teams, a single voter would present multiple passports at the registration point and receive multiple ballots in return. One team observed a single voter stuffing an estimated 30 ballots into the ballot box. In other polling stations, particularly those where most people had already voted, observers looked over the registration lists and noted long series of identical signatures, indicating that a single person had “signed out” numerous ballots. Only in a few polling places did election officials attempt to conceal the evidence of proxy voting by refusing to issue multiple ballots while the embassy’s observers were clearly watching. (COMMENT: Emboffs thought that the voters presenting multiple passports appeared visibly upset not to receive all of “their” ballots, and believe that election officials probably told those voters to come back after the embassy team left. End Comment.) Evidence of proxy voting was still apparent on the registration lists, though election officials at those locations tried to convince embassy observers that very similar handwriting “runs in the family.”
And then culture intervenes.
For many (particularly in the rural areas), election day seemed to be a social occasion and a welcome break from their routine. Several of the polling stations were playing loud, festive music; one of our teams saw a number of people dancing . . . prominent members of the community were seen to cast their ballots and then nip off for a cup of tea, a plate of plov (rice pilaf), or a bowl of stew with members of the election commission.
Welcoming 18-year-olds seemed to be a source of pride. Several of the election commissions had planned a special acknowledgement for first-time voters upon registration. One polling station even had small gifts for all young people casting ballots for the first time.13
The bonhomie in Uzbekistan contrasts with elections that are outright nasty, violent, and underhanded. In Slovakia, a middle school teacher who pursued public office to improve the quality of the public schools began questioning some of the district mayor’s sweetheart deals with local mobsters. Shortly after a warning phone call, he awoke to find his car engulfed in flames outside his apartment.14 Elsewhere, ruling parties ensure their entrenchment by writing (or rewriting) the rules, moving the goalposts, and otherwise making it impossible for any opposition to run a real campaign.
In Russia, frustrated opposition candidates in the city of Ryazan (about two hundred kilometers southeast of Moscow) detailed the ways elections were rigged by United Russia, the ruling political party of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. Municipal officials allowed United Russia to place huge billboards in government-owned bus stops but told opposition groups that there was no bus stop space available or dramatically inflated the advertising rates.
United Russia also had candidates stand outside popular shopping centers and large grocery stores handing out shots of vodka to passersby . . . a sure way to attract the homeless, alcoholics, and the lower class to vote in favor of United Russia . . . One opposition candidate said city employees who voted for other parties would be harassed at their workplaces or even fired. The candidate alleged that local government even targeted the sick at hospitals and clinics, denying them medical services and medication if they did not vote for United Russia.15
Voters aren’t fools. If they suspect fraud they simply stay home, as was the case in Bashkortostan, the most populous Russian republic, situated alongside the Ural Mountains. “No one we talked to bothers to vote because, they say, the results are pre-ordained,” the embassy reported. “Several people commented on the 2005 elections when voter turnout was alleged to be 80 percent although people in the cities do not vote. It turned out that thousands of fake ballots were printed; activists protested and provided evidence of the fraud to Moscow.16
Embassies cataloged almost unlimited ways to throw an election. For example, the presence of outside observers hardly guarantees that elections will be aboveboard. It all depends on who is invited. Zimbabwe’s longtime dictator Robert Mugabe reached out only to those nations that had never voted against Zimbabwe in the UN—Venezuela, China, Iran, Russia, and Brazil. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Brazil’s envoy declared that the 2008 elections had been, in his words, “exemplary.” 17
Having a system in place is no guarantee against fraud. In many places, institutions ostensibly set up to ensure free elections are shams designed to do the opposite. In Nicaragua, the Supreme Electoral Council used the Orwellian tactic of protecting electoral integrity by severely restricting election observation and threatening to disqualify opposition candidates.18 In Cameroon, after months of tussling over the biased rules of the election agency ELECAM, the United States sent a message of disapproval by boycotting the public swearing-in of the leadership—a move that was joined by the British, Dutch, Canadian, and EU chiefs of mission.19
Elsewhere, technology has enhanced the old-fashioned practice of vote buying. In the Bahamas, the embassy found that votes were worth anywhere from $250 to $2,000 in three constituencies. “Workers allegedly offered cash in return for cell-phone camera pictures of PLP (Progressive Liberal Party) ballots, causing the parliamentary registrar in charge of voting to ban cell phones from polling stations.” 20 And if those in power are still uncertain of victory, they can always postpone elections. In Angola, the National Assembly sat for sixteen years before a new election was called, despite constitutional provisions for elections every four years.21
Why would a seat in parliament be worth such high-risk (and high-cost) gambits? In a word, immunity. Most parliaments offer sitting members immunity from prosecution. To illustrate the lengths to which the concept is taken, we’ll let the U.S. embassy in Bulgaria have the last word. Reporting on the consequences of a court decision that allowed gangsters to go free on bail to run for parliament, where their position would
gain them immunity from prosecution, the embassy wrote that amid a climate of opaque financing and shadowy political parties, “There is a strong stench of malevolent manipulation of the electoral system by entrenched and unscrupulous interests.” 22
BUY AMERICAN! PROCUREMENT, BRIBERY, AND SWEETHEART DEALS
In 1976, the U.S. Congress passed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in response to revelations that U.S. companies bribed foreign officials to gain contracts. Enacted in 1977, the statute makes it illegal for a citizen or corporation of the United States to influence, bribe, or seek an advantage from a public official of another country.23 “Everyone else is doing it” would no longer suffice as an excuse. The act was amended in 1998 to conform to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.24 To date, the thirty-four OECD members and seven nonmember states have signed the convention, a small proportion when contrasted with the much larger number of countries that have not signed.
Public tenders, in which billions of dollars are often at stake, are especially vulnerable to opaque decision-making processes. Former Communist countries, no matter how bright other aspects of their transition to the free market, failed repeatedly when it came to transparent tenders. Even those in Central Europe that were among the first to incorporate themselves into the European Union, the OECD, and NATO struggled to overcome a legacy of cronyism, kickbacks, and bribes.
In Slovakia, the embassy scoffed at the firing of the minister of environment over a public procurement scandal, calling it no more than politics as usual. The case involved an €85 million public tender for the disposal of coal ash. The minister awarded the contract to a company that bid €27 million, almost 33 percent higher than the nearest competitor. Prime Minister Robert Fico had by then fired no fewer than nine ministers in the three-party coalition government, mostly over corruption. Still, the embassy was unimpressed. “The SNS (Slovak National Party) is the most egregiously corrupt and self-serving of the three coalition partners, and what Fico appears to object to is not so much the fact of SNS ministers’ cronyism as their sheer ham-fisted clumsiness, which rarely leaves more than a week’s respite between banner headlines.” 25