Political Corruption and Presidential Elections

The united states can be argued as one of the oldest democracy currently standing benefiting from a stern rule-of-law tradition, freedom of expression and religious beliefs along with many other secular liberties. Although that holds true in recent years many democratic institutions have fallen failure to “erosion, bias and dysfunction in the criminal justice system and large differences wealth and political influence”.

After an increase in evidence that supports the claim of Russia running interference in the 2016 election, political rights ratings declined from 1 to 2.

Unlike prior presidential elections, the 2016 election attracted a fair amount of intrusion from foreign powers. In october 2016, U.S intelligence concluded that the Russian government was responsible for stealing and taking documents from political candidate, Hillary Clinton. In january 2017, the U.S intelligence agency made a more serious accusation, claiming that Russian leadership had carried out a broad campaign to weaken the public faiths in the democratic process. Although there is no substantial evidence that supports these tactics altered the presidential election, it was reflected in the political rights score, declining again from 4 to 3.

Although the America has a parochial view toward political corruption, a fairly recent Supreme Court ruling narrowed the legal definition of political corruption to only include a clear exchange of bribes for government action, making these perpetrators less likely to be held accountable for their actions. In 2017, the Trump administration underwent a few number of changes, the main being the shift of management to his children. Anti Corruption groups criticized Trump for not establishing a stronger structural barrier between him and his businesses; which layer supports the concern that Trump was using his office for personal enrichment.

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The Trump administration also notably undercut conflict of interest restrictions for White House and executive appointees. Although most of these conclusions are purely based skeptics, the political rights score declines once more from 4 to 3 due to violations of basic ethical standards by the new administration, including Trump’s failure to separate himself from his business and the hiring of family members and important chair members despite apparent conflicts of interest. 12th consecutive year of decline in global freedom.

Russia is ruled by an authoritarian government which is concentrated in the hands of President Vladimir Putin. Being able to manipulate elections and inhibit genuine opposition by controlling loyalist security forces, subservient judiciary and media environments, the countries uncontrollable corruption is an obvious threat to the states power. In 2017 Kremlin-approved candidates controlled regional elections held in September which was described as “administrativeky controlled”. In december, central Elections Commission (CEC) banned Alexei Navalny, days after he declared his intentions for challenging Putin for presidency, from challenging against Putin in the 2018 election. Also taking place in 2017, Russian authorities banned the activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which Germany (Putin) declared an extremist group.

Lastly, if anything comes close to a media outrage, a Russian independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, reported that “dozens of men suspected of being gay had been detained and tortured by security forces in Chechnya. Scoring a zero out of one hundred in electoral process is one of the main things, if Russia were to change, would have the biggest impact of the country as a whole. In 1993, the Russian constitution established a strong presidency with the power to dismiss and appoint the prime minister. Putin served two four-year presidential terms but remained the paramount leader while working as prime minister until 2012. Using preferential media treatment, in 2012, he won majority vote against a field of political handpicked weak opponents. Currently Putin is serving a six year term an announced in December 2017, that he will run for yet another ter, in the presidential election. All in all in Russia were to fix its electoral process and gave room to other candidates without the interference of groups like the CEC, it could give face to a new ear including incorporating different belief systems, give power to individual activist groups and help with political accountability.