Fighting corruption

Although it took place around the time that Apple launched new products and the US government outlined its plans to attack Islamic State (IS) forces with a “coalition of the willing,” the Democratic primary recently won by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo deserved more attention than it received. Four days ago Gov Cuomo defeated Fordham Law School professor Zephyr Teachout, his main rival, by a comfortable margin (62 per cent to 34). What the vote count doesn’t show, however, is the passion, and tenacity, of Teachout’s campaign, and the deep-seated public frustration that fuelled her relative success.

Relying mainly on a clear-headed anti-corruption platform, Teachout attracted a huge number of votes on a very small budget – a mere US$200,000, compared with Cuomo’s $32M. And, despite having a candidate with much greater political experience, name recognition (as the son of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo), and funding, Cuomo’s team was sufficiently rattled to seek her disbarment through a legal challenge to her status as a resident of New York. Teachout’s running mate, Columbia law professor Timothy Wu, lost a similarly asymmetrical, hard-fought primary for Lieutenant Governor and ended up with 40 per cent of the vote.

The main reason for the success of these hitherto little-known academics is popular anger at longstanding corruption in the state of New York – ironically, one of the key problems Cuomo promised to address when he took office in 2011. A high-profile commission appointed to investigate Albany’s notorious graft was granted complete freedom at the outset – Cuomo emphasised this publicly. Then, two months into its work, it subpoenaed a media-buying agency that counted the Governor as one of its top clients. A high-ranking Cuomo aide quickly ordered the withdrawal of the subpoena. Further objections from the Governor’s circle followed, according to the New York Times, “whenever the commission focused on groups with ties to Mr Cuomo or on issues that might reflect poorly on him.” Eventually, Cuomo disbanded the panel less than halfway through the 18-month period it was meant to last. Federal prosecutors have since taken up the dissolved commission’s lines of enquiry and are examining the extent to which Cuomo and his aides interfered with its work.

Corruption in the developing world is often thought of as a simple consequence of a lack of transparency. We tell ourselves that corrupt politicians and public servants can operate with impunity because they face no scrutiny from a sceptical and curious press. This is certainly true, but the frequency of corruption scandals in places like New York and Chicago (not to mention several large corruption scandals in the otherwise upstanding Canadian province of Ontario) show how hard it can be to hold public officials to account anywhere. Even in countries where independent media operate fearlessly, most corrupt figures know how difficult it is for the public to hold them accountable in any meaningful way. When the press is under siege, institutional corruption can become practically unlimited. The arrest of Mario Zelaya, for misusing US$20 million of public funds while heading the Honduran Institute of Social Security, is one recent example of this.

Sadly, what Gov Cuomo’s easy victory shows is that even when there are serious questions about an incumbent’s integrity, political experience and money usually prevail. US campaign financing is replete with dubious arrangements that perpetuate this lopsidedness. Two years ago, in the wake of Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, the billionaire Sheldon Adelson funded conservative candidates to the tune of US$150 million. (Memorably, Adelson told Forbes magazine: “I’m against very wealthy people attempting to or influencing elections. But as long as it’s doable, I’m going to do it.”) The billionaire Koch brothers have also lavished comparable amounts on their favoured candidates. In fact, no less than a quarter of all campaign funding in the US originates from just one tenth of one per cent of the electorate. Equally troubling is the revolving door between those who are meant to serve the public interest and the lobbyists who seek to influence it. Currently, no less than half of the US Congress become lobbyists after leaving office.

If corruption and the undue influence of vested interests prove this hard to dislodge in a relatively transparent society, we should not act so surprised at some of what takes place in this country, or elsewhere in the Caribbean. Ultimately, each society gets the level of accountability it deserves. We should not look to individual politicians or public figures to deliver us from corruption that we have tolerated, or, worse yet, abetted, for decades. Otherwise we shirk the harder, more necessary task of confronting all the petty acts of corruption – misquoted taxes and import duties, bribes, money laundering – that have become so commonplace that we hardly pay them any attention.