The Islamic Republic has risen stunningly since it hit rock-bottom two years ago when the index showed 93 percent of the world’s countries to be less corrupt than Iran. Then last year, 81 percent showed up as less corrupt. In this year’s index, released last week, only 65 percent of the world’s countries were deemed to be less corrupt.
Eight countries were ranked as equally corrupt as the Islamic Republic, all achieving scores of 2.7, where 10.0 is incorruptible.
Those eight are: Bangladesh; Ecuador; Ethiopia; Guatemala; Kazakhstan, Mongolia; Mozambique and the Solomon Islands,
However, the Islamic Republic looked pretty good compared to its neighbors. In fact, of Iran’s seven land neighbors, only a single one—Turkey—ranked higher on the index than Iran. Afghanistan was third from the bottom, with only North Korea and Somalia below it. Turkmenistan was fifth from the bottom. Turkey, however, ranked 61st in the world, far above Iran’s 120th place.
That was a big difference from last year when four of Iran’s neighbors ranked higher—Armenia, Azerbaijan, Pakistan as well as Turkey.
At the top of the list this year were New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Singapore. Canada ranked 10th. The United States came in 24th.
The TI index considers both political and business corruption. It is a composite that combines several business and expert researcher studies. Since no one files reports on their level of corruption, the studies are based on perceptions as reported, for example, by businessmen trying to conduct business in a country.
The full report is available on the Internet at: http://www.transparency.org/.
Corruption rank
Here is how Iran has ranked in terms of corruption since Transparency International began rating the Islamic Republic in 2003.
Year Ranking % above Score
2011 120th of 183 65% 2.7
2010 146th of 178 81% 2.2
2009 168th of 180 93% 1.8
2008 141st of 180 78% 2.3
2007 131st of 179 73% 2.5
2006 105th of 163 64% 2.7