Hungary scored 48 points on a 0-100 scale, on which the higher a country scores the more transparent its public sector. Hungary lost three points compared to a year earlier, putting the country in 57th position, equal with Romania and Jordan.
Each year TI scores countries on the apparent corruption of their public sectors. TI believes its CPI “sends a powerful message and governments have been forced to take notice and act,” according to TI’s website. “Behind these numbers is the daily reality for people living in these countries. The index cannot capture the individual frustration of this reality, but it does capture the informed views of analysts, businesspeople and experts in countries around the world,” the description of this year’s results says.
TI’s latest CPI publication comes a few weeks after Szilárd Németh, a vice president and MP of the governing party Fidesz, said he would like to see NGOs such as the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ), Hungarian Helsinki Committee and Transparency International “cleaned out” of the country, according to reports.
Following the Fidesz government’s recent communication about NGOs, Hungarian-born billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros criticized the Hungarian government as a threat to civil society.
Last week, TI posted a video in which Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was listed among a clutch of world leaders accused of nepotism, together with then U.S. President-elect Donald J. Trump.
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