The Dominican people voted for a change in the ruling political party in the 2020 general elections. The perception was that corruption levels had escalated to all-time highs after 16 consecutive years of the same political party.
Despite the change in the ruling party and new government, the Dominican Republic has a long way to restore transparency. The Dominican Republic is ranked 137th of 180 countries in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2020 ranking just released on 27 January 2021.
The Dominican Republic’s score (28 of 100) tied with at the bottom of the list with Paraguay (28), and only above Guatemala (25) Honduras (24), Nicaragua (22), Haiti (18), Venezuela (15) in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The score primarily reflects the past government that ended in August 2020. The challenge of the new administration is to lead the Dominican Republic to move up in the index.
Participación Ciudadana, the local Transparency International partner, presented the CPI index findings on Thursday, 28 January 2021.
Participación Ciudadana highlights that the Medina administration failed to achieve objectives of the National Development Strategy Law 1-12. “The data shows that our country failed to reach the 51 points it set as a goal for 2020. The highest score obtained by the country since the publication of these reports began was 35 points in 2002, while the lowest is 28 in 2019 and 2020,” according to Participación Ciudadana.
Since its inception in 1995, the Corruption Perceptions Index, Transparency International’s flagship research product, has become the leading global indicator of public sector corruption. The index offers an annual snapshot of the relative degree of corruption by ranking countries and territories from all over the globe.
The Corruption Perceptions Index is based on data from thirteen external sources. Seven sources were used for the Dominican Republic:
Bertelsman Foundation Sustainable Governance Index
Economist Intelligence Unit Country
Global Insight Country Risk Ratings
PRS International Country Risk Guide
Varieties of Democracy Projects
World Economic Forum
World Justice Project Rule of Law Index
Read more in Spanish:
Participación Ciudadana
Transparency International
Hoy
28 January 2021