WASHINGTON, Jan 30: Elections may be a key benchmark of reform around the world but there is little evidence to suggest they are strongly related to improved government accountability, a global poll showed on Wednesday.

Global Integrity, a non-governmental group tracking governance and corruption trends, said a poll it carried out in 55 diverse nations in the second half of last year showed that promoting elections at the expense of other governance reforms might not advance long-term democratic consolidation.

Data from “Global Integrity Report: 2007” appeared to support a more “gradualist” approach to governance reforms, including electoral, legal and institutional development to stimulate longer-term improvements in government accountability, the group said in a statement.

In Pakistan, the furore surrounding upcoming parliamentary polls “glosses over the reality that without deep and far-reaching structural reforms, elections, regardless of their outcome, will mean little to the country’s chances for a transparent and accountable government,” Global Integrity said. Recent crises in Ukraine and Georgia also underscore the finding.

The two governments “remain paralysed by deeply-rooted corruption scandals despite relatively successful elections trumpeted by outside actors, including the United States,” the report said.

An analysis of the 2007 data revealed that “elections-strong” countries were just as likely to face serious problems with government accountability as “elections-poor” countries.

For example, Peru, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kazakhstan, among the more than 20 countries with a “strong” rating for election integrity, performed “moderate” to “very weak” in sub-categories assessing asset disclosure and conflicts-of-interest regulations.

At the same time, more than two dozen countries that earned “moderate” to “very weak” ratings for election integrity also fared similarly disappointingly in the same government accountability and administration/civil service categories as the elections-strong countries.

Burundi, Egypt, and Tajikistan, for example, had a “very weak” election integrity rating while also earning a poor assessment in asset disclosure, conflicts-of-interest enforcement, and internal anti-corruption mechanisms across government and the civil service.

“The lack of a strong relationship between clean elections and improved government accountability suggests that a narrow focus on elections may be less effective than a more holistic approach to strengthening the accountability of senior officials and civil servants,” Global Integrity said.

A free media, vibrant civil society, multiple institutional checks and balances, and key internal anti-corruption mechanisms must also exist, it said.

The survey also showed that the Group of Eight countries suffered from similar challenges as developing countries.

“While many observers tend to assume that wealthier countries have developed to a point where corruption is no longer a problem,” survey data for the United States, France, Italy, Japan, and Canada painted a “decidedly different picture.”—AFP