Corruption Political Stability and Development Comparative Evidence From Egypt to Morocco

Corruption, Political Stability and Development

Development in any country and constant stimulation of the same is based practically on the political stability and the levels of corruption as well in that country. The two are mutually exclusive in that the more a country is corrupt and politically unstable, the lesser the development they achieve at any given stage of the economic revolution or change.

The state of political instability in Morocco and Egypt, abets the corruption therein leading to nations that cannot keep up-to pace with the development trends in the world. The corruption that in turn begets political instability is manifest in the highest offices of the two countries, with the most powerful protecting a ring of corrupt individuals, more often from their close families. The situation in the two countries can be solved by an overhaul of the entire system, not in personalities but in principles and governance systems.

Objectives

The aim of this research paper is to find out the major problems that are ailing the two third world countries to an extent that the economy is also affected.

It also looks at the developmental issues in the country and to what extent they have been achieved and how they benefit the citizens of these countries.

The paper also takes a deep look at the political situation and vision of the two governments for the countries and if these visions are in the right track and implementation of these visions.

Scope

The research will look into the possibility of regaining the two countries from the mess they have become. As a matter of urgency, the two countries need to be stabilized politically in the face of the recent uprisings in the Middle East that saw Egypt in particular as one of the victims of this revolution. The paper looks at the possible panacea to the two countries, the applicability and practicality, and also the relevance of the solutions that will be focused upon.

2.1 Literature review

There has been quite a lot written on all source concerning the Middle East in general and the two countries in particular. The peculiar thing about the Middle East is that they share a lot of common trends in all the spheres of their existence, from the oil fuelled economy to the imperialism in their governance to the close intertwine of governance and religion in all these countries. It would be a fallacy then to discuss a country in isolation hence the need to take a brief look at the region as a whole first.

2.1.1The Middle East

2.1.2 The Middle East Democracy

The Middle East and its democracy has been a subject of long discussions for decades now. The dynamics of its democracy and democratization has taken an almost similar trend and transformation among the countries that make up the Middle East. Foremost, it is important to know the countries that make up the Middle East so one can have a vivid picture of the geographical location of the region as discussion progresses. The Middle East as a region covers Western Asia and North Africa and lots of time the name Near East is used with Middle East interchangeably mainly when taking a historical perspective, which is the opposite of Far East.

The history of this region dates back to early times and has been at the centre of world affair from ancient years. It has immensely contributed to the historical origin and development of main religions like Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Islam and Christianity. The climatic conditions in the middle east is mainly arid and hot for the better part of the year, it has several rivers feeding irrigation that supports agriculture in a few areas. The Persian Gulf holds a considerable amount of crude oil supplying the countries surrounding it with an ample and reliable quantity of the valuable commodity. This steady supply makes the region to be an eminent player economically, religiously, culturally and politically in the world in general. It is due to the oil that the economic growth rate of Middle East is expected to be about 47% by 2014 in some countries like Iran (The Currency Newshound, 2011).

The countries that define Middle East geographically and politically are Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian, Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen among others.

For many decades the U.S.A. has involved itself in the business of trying to help democratize the Middle East and the Muslim world in general with personal interest in the sleeves. Ironically there has been an endless inevitable propping up of autocratic regimes that ended up suppressing their own citizens. Taking into account the democracy index according to the Economist (2008), the only country in the Middle East that can be considered an established democracy is Israel with 7.8, and others that are headed there are Lebanon with a score of 5.82 and Turkey with 5.73 which are coded "hybrid regime" together with Pakistan, Iraq, Armenia, and Palestine. The remaining countries are considered authoritarian regimes with below 2 scores.

There have been varying arguments fronted by divergent political scientists on why the democratic levels in the Middle East remain to be that low. Revisionists fronted the argument that democracy is irreconcilable with the Islamic values and cultural beliefs.

Others argue that the lack of a clear cut differentiation between religion and state is what kills democracy since the state always oversteps the line in the name of upholding religious values. In deed Prof. Massoud (2011) says, "The relation between religion and modern state was ad still is the main feature of the all Middle East states that are living in deep crisis."

Still better, the "post colonial" theorists uphold the argument that the long imperial history like in the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France followed by the present-day military and political intervention are to blame for the flawed democracy in the Middle East. They are accused of giving preference to the authoritarian regime since that made easy the business front as they enriched the ruling elite and the companies of the ruling countries.

The other explanation for flawed democracy in the Middle East is its strategic position as hosting Rentier states i.e. states endowed with vast deposits of natural resources. In the Middle East case it is the crude oil. It is argued that many external interests from the U.S.A., Europe and other developed countries has consistently threatened the political stability of the region in a bid to take advantage of the political instability and extract the crude. The political elites engage in grand squander of the public resources under the influence of their power and line their pockets and of allies by engaging in rent-seeking and mega corruption (Rosser, 2006).

One may want to look at the types of governments in the region and the governance system if that could be a contributing factor to the Egypt, Morocco and the Middle East instability in general. Apparently this region has an almost uniform way of governance with slight differences between one and the other as discussed below;

Arab Socialism; does exist in some countries like Syria and Egypt, where regular elections are held but mostly are single-party states or suffer imbalanced dominant party systems hence not complete multi-party systems. It is worth noting that they do not give room for the people to choose their presidential candidates from many contestants. The constitution gives the president monopoly of making decisions.

Absolute monarchy; is more prevalent in the middle east than anywhere else in the world, and even in kingdoms where there are parliaments still can be categorized under this governance system. The kingdoms in the Arabian Peninsula, (but for Yemen) and Saudi Arabia fall under this category, with the governance is characterized by corrupt dictatorship that suppresses any attempt of revolution or democratization. These regions are also characterized by continued contestations and rebellions between the proponents of change and the dictatorial rulers.

Constitutional monarchy; where a monarch acts as the head of state and rules in accordance to the constitution be it written or otherwise. Most of the constitutional monarchs have and established parliamentary system and most of the Middle East subscribes to and can be said to be partly democratic. Countries like Bahrain, Kuwait, Morocco and Jordan are part of this system.

Islamic Governments; these are governments that are run with greater part of the rules dependent on the Islamic laws. For instance in Iran (which is an Islamic Republic with a constitution) the Supreme Leader is elected by the Assembly of Experts and should rule for life unless the term is truncated by the same assembly. The Supreme Leader will the appoint Guardian Council which in turn vetoes who is to run for elections including election for Assembly of Experts.

2.1.3 The prevailing situation in Egypt and Morocco

Egypt

Egypt has its capital at Cairo and the government that runs this country has been the republic government. Hitherto, there were 26 governorates which were in accordance to their constitution that was endorsed in September 11, 1971. Egypt holds a vast range of natural resources like petroleum, manganese, talc, natural gas, iron ore, zinc, phosphate, limestone, gypsum, lead and asbestos. They also pride themselves of vast agricultural land and weather that enables them to engage in cotton, wheat, rice, corn, fruits, beans, vegetables, cattle, water sheep, buffalo, fish and goats farming. Egypt therefore has a potential export of crude oil, raw cotton, metal products cotton yarn, textiles and chemical petroleum products and engage USA, Japan and Europe in its trade among others (Think Quest, 2011).

Politically, the current Egypt is a product of a long revolution and historically dynamic Egypt that was under Pharaohs in the ancient of day and much later on in the hands of people like Gamal Abdul Nasser and Anwar as Sadat. The government system of Egypt has been a highly centralized one and a powerful system. The latest being the just ousted Hosni Mubarak. His exit was facilitated by the Muslim Brotherhood which is the most powerful Islamic party in the country. The group was concerned about the authoritarian rule that Egypt was subjected to under the rule of Mubarak and wanted a total overhaul of the system (Shehata, 2011). As of February 11, 2011 Egypt fell under the military rule after a forced eviction of Mubarak through ceaseless protests and riots.

2.1.4 Corruption in Egypt

The corruption that is reported n Egypt is of unimaginable proportions. As Mubarak awaits questioning over several corrupt cases due to be conducted in Cairo, documents arraigned in the accusation indicate that Mubarak and family stashed massive amounts in secret bank accounts leveling t about $150 million fraudulently (Haaretz Service, 2011).

There was evidence of massive corruption in the country mid last year when there was a wide campaign and attempt to privatize the major government operatives. This led to unprecedented protest in June till the government had to bring to a halt the whole exercise. A paltry 20% felt that the privatization was beneficial to the country, with a majority sharing the view with Amir El-Shobaki a political scientist as quoted by All Voices (2011) that "privatization was a way that friends of the rich and powerful could grow more rich and powerful."

The corruption in Egypt covered even the insurance companies and there have been case of workers in insurance firm holding protests against their insurance companies claiming corruption cases in Egypt Insurance Company. They poised that large sums were located for computers though none was bought, other sums for building yet none had been erected (Ahram Online, 2011)

The above examples are among a myriad of several others but can serve as and indicative of the extent of rot in the Egyptian case from the top office to the very subsidiary ones. There have been claims of favoritism in government appointments leveled against the ousted government Mubarak's relatives and political stooge were put into powerful positions. This was the drive for an absolute overhaul of the government even after Mubarak himself had stepped down.

2.1.5 Democracy in Egypt

The situation in Egypt could not pass by whatever standards as democratic country. The president ruled with a lot of authoritarian power, manipulating the constitution for his personal gains. He used the military to clamp down on the dissenting voices and gain an absolute military control over Egypt (Springborg, 2011). There were no true democratic elections that were ever held and if any election was held, it was dogged by malpractices that robbed it the due credibility.

Morocco

Morocco is ruled by a monarch kind of system where the position of the "president" is held by the King currently King Mohammed VI. He acts as the president in each and every aspect of the governance of Morocco wielding substantive power. Though he is regarded as a political leader, he enjoys a lot of religious powers as well. He is endowed with appointing the government membership and also the prime minister. In addition he is the supreme commander of the armed forces of the Moroccan government.

Among the excessive powers that the king holds is ability to suspend the constitution, dissolving the parliament and even suspending any minister at will (Maps of the World, 2009).

2.1.6 Corruption in Morocco

In February 1st 2009 the Transparency Maroc (TM) held their 13th general meeting and among the concerns is the thriving corruption in Morocco, which they described as flourishing on impunity maintained by public authorities. Indeed one of the TM officials Rachid Filali said "…whilst the country maintained its score of 3.5 out of 10, which it obtained in 2007, under the Corruption Perceptions Index, it has, however, slipped from 72nd place to 80th," (Magharebia, 2009).

The rot is not confined to the public officials alone in Morocco but extends to the business sector where a reported 46% of the businessmen confessed to using corrupt deal in skipping or stimulating the custom procedures or the administrative processes (Magharebia). They went further to use the influence of their relatives in the government to get to the ends they are pursuing. This was exemplification of the use of the state structures to abet corruption instead of serving to help make easier the trading situation in Morocco.

TM also found a deep rooted corrupt system in the country's legal system with a score of 306, the police followed closely with 3.4, all the way to the medical services with 3.

One of the leading Moroccan Human Rights Association (AMDH) noted that the state use corruption to beget the political elite and in so doing perpetuating and retaining the prevailing political balances, a system that is bent on offering and benefiting from privileges therefore failing to fight corruption (Abderrahim El Ouali, 2011).

Transparency International also notes that the informal sector in Morocco also plays a vital part in the corruption build up. This manifests from the acts of smuggling, illegal relations in the procurement and lack of clear policy in remunerations among workers (Abderrahim El Ouali).

There are reported cases of mass fraudulence in the banking industry, the public housing, social security, public companies, public housing, international aid projects, state contracts and even the municipal councils, practically all sectors were touched by corrupt dealings.

One of the biggest losses in Morocco to corruption was the 1.3 billion dollars loss that was lost to ghost businessmen using ghost companies to obtain hefty credits from the bank only to be declared bankrupt, as revisited by Kamoune of TI to IPS News (2011).

2.1.7 Democracy in Morocco

Morocco has been a monarchy in it system of governance for over 47 years under King Muhammad VI. He ruled with absolute power that even weighed to his favor against the parliament itself. In the wake of the unrest in most Middle East countries, most having a changeover of governance, the King of Morocco moved swiftly to promise fundamental changes in Morocco and the governance system in a bid to retain his power. He has promised a landmark constitutional changes that will see his own powers clipped and be less than of the elected parliament.

The Middle East Online (2011) outlays the several changes that if passed will be evidently a leap forward in Moroccan democracy. There would be a clear separation of powers, recognize and implement human rights and gender equality, governance would be spread equitably throughout the country.

The judiciary will no longer be under the executive but independent. There would be an elected prime minister who would control most operations of the executive, not as before appointed by the King.

Berber would be made the official language alongside Arabic and the most significant would be the regional elected bodies having overriding powers over the appointed governors in term of decision making in the regional affairs.

2.2 Corruption, democracy and development

It is estimated that the GDP of Egypt stood at $2,161 per person per year and that or Morocco stood at $2,748 per person per year by 2010 (Global property Guide, 2010). These are some of the lowest; as a matter of fact they are above only Yemen in the entire Middle East. This can be associated to the corruption data and facts and the level of democracy as stipulated hitherto.

2.4 The solution for Egypt and Morocco

The above situations and current goings-on, there is a need for radical change and revolutionary re-evaluation and repositioning in the domestic, political, diplomatic, security and the economic fronts. For these to be achieved, I suggest a number of solutions for the two countries in this case study: