VOTE BUYING
One of the most blatant manifestations of political corruption is when politicians bribe voters directly. The practice - proscribed by most national legislations - is fuelled by money that is not properly accounted for at best, from criminal sources at worst.
It is difficult to assess how widespread the practice of vote buying is. The term encompasses many kinds of inducements, such as the distribution of food, clothing or public services, in addition to direct monetary exchanges. Surveys give a first approximation of how frequently votes are ‘bought’ in some countries. Compelling data is available for the Philippines, for example, where about 7 per cent of all eligible voters received some form of payment in the 2002 barangay (community level) elections; and for Thailand, where 30 per cent of household heads surveyed in a national sample said that they were offered money during the 1996 general election. A survey by Transparencia Brasil suggests that in the municipal elections of March 2001, 7 per cent of voters were offered money for their votes.
Vote buying tends to be carried out where parties are weak, with elections centred on candidates rather than parties, and where traditions of patronage are engrained. A number of studies suggest that it is poor people who are most often targeted with offers to buy their votes.
Votes may be bought by incumbents using public funds. In Mexico, for example, voters testified that they had been threatened with the withdrawal of subsidies under the state poverty-alleviation programme, Progresa, if they voted for the opposition. This connection between the crimes of vote buying and of misuse of public funds is an area ripe for study: the correlation between public expenditure patterns and electoral cycles could yield interesting data. TI Russia has already begun to monitor this practice.
Source: Transparency International