The Universality of Political Corruption
Political corruption has been around ever since the advent of politics, same can be said for Electoral corruption. Note that Electoral corruption is a subset of political corruption and therefore is a narrower version of political corruption and is still as old as elections itself. Political corruption, coincides with electoral corruption and is a prominent feature concerning politics and elections involving old and new democracies. An interesting example of this is in the Southern States of the U.S., like Mississippi is infamous for election fraud aimed at disenfranchising African American voters. Another example is the Daley machine in Chicago or the Huey Long machine in Louisiana.
These machines were found to be rigged and had ties to the Mafia. A final example is the Watergate scandal heightened sensitivity to political corruption and led to the implementation of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in 1974. This commission oversees election administration and all campaign financing. The impact of severe political corruption and election fraud in a brand new democracy, like our own can be more pernicious and devastating.
It is clear that political corruption, the abuse of state resources and especially election fraud for partisan electoral purposes have extremely deep cultural and structural origins. They are intimately related to our Constitution, to the extent that they impose checks and balances, to the operational separation of state from government from the ruling party, to the degree of security of tenure enjoyed by the public servants, to the control of the economy and media and to the extent of the size and autonomy of the non-state and private sector.
They beg the question of whether or not there is genuine constitutionalism. Therefore, rather than resorting to exhortations and hand-slapping of the abusers, the problem must instead be addressed through institutional measures, like correcting structural flaws in the Constitution and laws of the country. Reduce Presidential and public official discretionary powers, shore up the independence of oversight and accountability bodies, bolster not only the independence, but the capacity of the Auditor General Department , and enact civic and public education that targets and raises the public, media and civil societies awareness and sensitivity to the problem.