The International Anti-Corruption Day

The survey indicating citizens’ expectations from the new government was presented at the celebration of the International Anti-corruption Day, showing that citizens expect better results and increased efforts in the field of combating corruption.

On 9 December Transparency International Croatia organized a celebration of the International Anti-Corruption Day. The President of the TI Croatia, Nikola Kristić, Deputy Head of the Delegation of the EU to the Republic of Croatia, Paolo Berizzi, and the President of the National Council for Monitoring the Implementation of the Anti-Corruption Program, Željko Jovanović addressed the audience. Some of the distinguished guests included the ambassadors of Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Norway and the USA, as well as deputy chiefs of the mission of Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom, representatives of other diplomatic missions, officials of the Croatian ministries and other institutions of the Republic of Croatia and members of NGOs.

TIC presented results of the survey conducted for this occasion. The results indicated that citizens expect the new government to improve results and increase efforts in the field of combating corruption. The survey was carried out by the Promocija Plus agency, on the nationally representative and multi-stratified sample of 1,300 citizens on 29 and 30 November 2011. More than 90% of the citizens think that the new government should increase activities in the field of combating corruption. While 85.9% think that the activities should be increased significantly, 5.4% hold that these activities should be partially increased. Approximately every twentieth citizen (or 5.2%) thinks it would be enough to continue with the present intensity of activities, whereas 2.3% think the efforts could be even decreased.
Most of the citizens expect better results in corruption control: 25.8% significantly better and 36.2% slightly better results. Less than 2% of the citizens expect worse results. Almost three fifths or 58% of the citizens think that the new government will continue with the ongoing investigations without delay, and one fifth (20.3%) think that investigations will be intensified regardless of the election winners. While 6.6% of the citizens expect more intensity only in investigating political opponents, 3.8% of them think that the ongoing investigations will be stopped.
More than one quarter of the citizens (27%) think that more efficient judiciary is the best way forward in curbing corruption. While 18.5% of the citizens think that the second best option is the implementation of stronger penalties for the offenders, 15% think that the basic prerequisite is better legal framework. The most frequent answers to the question „Who do you think contributed the most to curbing corruption during the last five years?“ were: 27% of the citizens think it was the State Attorney, USKOK and the police and 15.6% think that NGOs contributed the most. On the third place were journalists and media with 13.5%. For most of the citizens (42.4%) the government of the Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor achieved average success in the field of combating corruption. Whereas 27.1% think the government was unsuccessful (11.4% completely unsuccessful), 26.9% consider the work of the government successful (5.8 completely successful).