Turkey has taken 13 steps back and was ranked the 91st least corrupt nation among 180 countries with a score of 39 out of 100, according to the 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released by Transparency International on Thursday.
The country ranked 78th with 41 points on the same index in 2018.
Turkey’s corruption ranking averaged 60.68 from 1995 until 2019, reaching an all-time high of 91 in 2019 and a record low of 29 in 1995.
The CPI ranks countries and territories based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be. A country or territory’s score indicates the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean).
This year’s analysis shows corruption is more pervasive in countries where big money can flow freely into electoral campaigns and where governments listen only to the voices of wealthy or well-connected individuals.
Turkey’s score and ranking in the CPI index has been rapidly decreasing since 2013, when the country was shaken by two corruption investigations in which senior members of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) were involved.
At the time Prime Minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan described the investigations as a coup attempt against his government, and police officers and judiciary members who took part in the investigations were removed from their jobs and then sent to jail.
Transparency International is one of the leading global civil society organizations in the fight against corruption and has been publishing the Corruption Perceptions Index annually since 1995. Transparency International is active in 118 countries around the world.
Globally, New Zealand and Denmark had the highest score at 87, while Syria, South Sudan and Somalia had the lowest scores from 13 to 9 on the CPI.
