Corruption in political party and election campaign financing remains problematic in the Asia Pacific region. Results of the TI Global Corruption Barometer show that political parties were perceived to be one institution most affected by corruption. TI's Global Corruption Report 2004 has a special focus on Political Corruption in which a number of articles deal with vote-buying and repatriation of stolen wealth in the region.

TIAP National Chapters in Bangladesh, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea (South), Nepal, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vanuatu work to address this problem domestically and have developed a number of programmes and tools listed by country in alphabetical order below.

Parliament Watch is a programme designed to monitor the various activities of parliament including the speaker's role, points of order, the President's speeches, question-answer sessions, passage of bills, attendance of MPs, and activities of parliamentary committees. The data is collected from both print and electronic media. For more information, read the Tool Kit description or contact TI Bangladesh

Papers and research:

"Anatomy of Parliament: How it works" (in Bangla) 30 November 2000

Corruption in Bangladesh - An Analytical and Sociological Study

Crime, Coercion, Corruption and Voluntary Exchange by H K Dey 13 Oct 2003

Governance, Structural Adjustment & the State of Corruption in Bangladesh TI Bangladesh: Muzaffer Ahmed 13 Oct 2003

Political and Administrative Corruption: Concepts, Comparative Experience and Bangladesh Case 13 Oct 2003

Political Economy of Corruption by Ananya Raihan, 13 Oct 2003

To rid society of pervasive rot: Experts call for independent anti-corruption commission
The Independent, 31 December 2001

In 2006, TI Fiji carried out The Election Commitment Project to promote transparency and good governance in the government. Ahead of the general elections, political parties were asked to declare their commitment to a government free of corruption on the following items: Code of Conduct, Ethics Civic Education, Leadership Code, Freedom of Information, Anti-corruption Legislation and Anti-corruption Body. After the elections, follow-up activities to monitor government's performance in addressing these issues have taken place. For more information, please contact TI Fiji.

Curbing Corruption through Improved Governance and Clean Business Dealings project aims to combat petty corruption in the Indian society. The project has a special focus on political corruption. More information on the project here or by contacting TI India.

Read more:

Regional Workshop on Improving Governance - Methods for Improving Governance & Some Exemplary Initiatives TI India 2006

TI-India and Lok Sevak Sangh (LSS) are actively involved in the areas of electoral reforms and voters education. Both NGOs run campaigns to combat political corruption in high places. They press for legislation for an effective Lok Pal (Federal Ombudsman) by Parliament, Compulsory Declaration Of Assets by all Ministers and MPs and their spouses and dependants, with penalties for non-declaration or false declaration, and Electoral Reforms to ensure that the best available persons are elected to the legislatures without misuse of money power and ministerial power; compulsory audit of political party accounts; transparency in electoral funding; plugging of loop-holes in the anti-defection law to prevent change of allegiance from one party to another after election; and preventing at the threshold, corrupt and criminal elements from contesting elections. Contact TI India for more information.

Monitoring of Political Party Financing Programme: TI Indonesia works with Indonesian Corruption Watch and Tempo Newspaper, one of the prominent newspapers in the country, in investigating about money politics that might be used during the campaign of the presidential candidates, the donors of presidential candidates' campaign fund and their detail identities. All the findings are then reported to the monitoring committee of general election. Talk show and several press conferences have been held to publicize the findings. Based on the findings, the Chapter has developed an index of transparency and index of compliance of presidential candidates to the regulation of electoral commission. For more information, contact TI Indonesia.

On the International Anti-Corruption Day 2006, TI Japan published its Top Ten Cases of Corruption in Japan that year. Among the cases were serious examples of political corruption. More information

On 8th March 2005, TI-Korea launched the K-PACT, The Social Pact on Anti-Corruption and Transparency of Korea. The K-PACT establishes a national coalition which pledges to promote transparency, and accountability and fight corruption in the country. It includes the "Political Sector" as a main stakeholder in the Pact and sets an important precedent for national coalition building for and implementation of anti-corruption initiatives. See the in focus section of K-PACT.

Advocacy for Good Governance. In 2006, TI-Nepal focussed advocacy activities on policy makers. The Chapter made recommendations for the government for necessary constitutional and legal reforms on governance, politics and fiscal issues, as well as ratification of the UNCAC, supported by theme papers written by scholars. For more information, contact TI Nepal.

TI Nepal's Anti-corruption Programme 2002-2005 includes providing technical/professional support to selected state institutions to implement anti-corruption reform and making efforts to incorporate anti-corruption/ethics content in Parties' constitutions, policies, management and manifestos. The Chapter also runs a campaign against nominating candidates involved in financial irregularities and corruption.

TI Nepal's Tool: Appeal for Fair and Free Elections was developed to encourage political parties to field clean candidates and adopt proper electoral practices. It also set out to persuade Nepal's Election Commission to introduce a more ethical electoral system, and to urge voters to use their vote more carefully. The tool, which took the form of a written appeal to all of those involved in the election, was essentially an independent effort to ensure that Nepal's elections were as clean and fair as possible. The project was implemented in Nepal during the run up to the 1999 and 2002 parliamentary polls.

Combating political corruption is a key programme activity for TI Sri-Lanka. The Chapter has worked with the Election Commissioner 's to ensure balanced media coverage prior to the April 2004 elections and with the American Solidarity Center and Non-Political Trade Unions to ensure the protection of election officials. For more information, contact TI Sri Lanka.

In 2006, TI Taiwan initiated the Government Integrity Index (GII) project. Contact TI Taiwan for more information.

TI-Taiwan's programme to address political corruption involves three main activities: (1) Lobbying for transparency and accountability such as for effective provisions of the Political Donation Law (2004); (2) Monitoring elections in coalition with the Clean Election Campaign; and (3) Conducting election/voter education. For more Information, contact TI Taiwan.

In 2006, TI Thailand developed the Transparency Database on Assets and Liabilities of the Cabinet to facilitate access ot information for general public. Public information on assets and liabilities of the cabinet is inputted into a web-based database, which users can use for searching information. More knowledge on the database by contacting TI Thailand.

In 2006, the Thailand Chapter initiated the Public Forum on “Social and Political Reform: the New Round”. The forum consists of series of discussions covering wide range topics, including socio-cultural reform, political economy reform, legal reform, media reform, decentralization reform and politician reform. For more information, contact TI Thailand.

TI Thailand has launched the Public Agency Transparency Index. This pilot tool, initiated in 2005-2006, aims to measure the degree of transparency and accountability of the Thai public agencies. Contact TI Thailand for more information on the tool.

Case Study: Elections Observer Group for the Vanuatu 2002 National Elections - The Common Interest in Ethical Politics. This paper discusses the establishment, conduct and results of the Vanuatu National Elections 2002 as observed by the Vanuatu Elections Observer Group (EOG). The initial assessment of the likely character of the elections, the composition of the EOG and its terms of reference are described. The methodology of EOG is outlined, and the public awareness campaign and the survey of voters are detailed. Finally, major conclusions and recommendations are summarised and the implications of this case study for the future work of Transparency International are discussed.