Marcelo insists “mechanisms” to combat corruption need constant work
Portugal’s president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa – on the final leg of his second 10-year mandate – has expressed alarm by the buffeting to Portugal’s international reputation delivered by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.
Responding to journalists while visiting the Lisbon headquarters of the Red Cross, he admitted the ranking for 2024 – putting Portugal on a par with African countries of Botswana and Rwanda – was “worrying”. But he seemed to accept that the downward slide that has been relentless since 2015 has been aided by institutional indifference.
He referred particularly to the time it took (and it took a lot of time) for the organisation “dedicated to transparency to be set up and functioning”, arguing that mechanisms designed to combat corruption need constant renewal and improvement.
Marcelo also alluded to failures within the justice system. But he stressed that the perception of corruption “has evolved negatively in several European countries, in several Portuguese-speaking countries” – so it is not just Portugal that is failing to deal with the scourge – as well as the public perception that corruption still very much alive within everyday society.
According to data from Transparency International, Portugal scored 57 points in the 2024 corruption perception index – on a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 corresponds to the perception ‘very corrupt’ and 100 to ‘very transparent’ – which is one of the worst results in Western Europe and marks a drop of four points, and nine places, compared to the previous year.
It should be said that Portugal’s results started falling at the beginning of the PS Socialists’ eight years in power: 2024 saw a new regime take over, and the results of corruption perceptions under this regime have not yet been assessed.
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
Source material: LUSA
