Global anti-corruption watchdog Transparency has warned against the use of its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), released on 11 February, as a cover-up for declines in democracy.
The organisation was referring to countries who, it says, “leveraged their CPI rankings – or even stagnant scores – to present a misleading image of their governance.”
The CPI serves as a global benchmark for assessing perceptions of corruption in the public sector. It is important to acknowledge the word ‘perceptions’, which presents one aspect of many when it comes to corruption. “No single measure can fully capture the complexity of corruption or the nuances of governance quality. Due to its limited scope, issues like democratic backsliding and restrictions on civil liberties are not accounted for in the scores.”
Despite this, says TI, some governments use the CPI to create a distorted narrative. the organisation uses Georgia as an example, saying that the country has not improved its CPI score in 12 years, yet it “continues to tout [its] performance to obscure serious attacks on democratic processes, rule of law, and civil liberties”. In 2023 Georgia achieved a score of 49, a drop of three points since the previous CPI.
To support its case for Georgia, TI points out instances of impunity for corrupt activities, state capture, and the rise of kleptocratic practices as challenges to be addressed in terms of fighting corruption. “According to international assessments,” the organisation said, “over the past five years, Georgia has faced notable setbacks in freedom of association and assembly as well as freedom of expression. These challenges are driven by the harsh suppression of anti-government demonstrations, mounting restrictions on civil society, and an increasingly adversarial climate for the media.”
As recently as January 2025, a staff member of TI-Georgia, together with an opposition leader, was physically attacked in Batumi, the country’s second-largest city. The perpetrators, the organisation says, were linked to the ruling Georgian Dream party. Quoted in an article, TI-Georgia demanded an investigation, saying this attack on a member of a civil society organisation was “a deliberate act of violence and retaliation by [Bidzina] Ivanishvili’s [Georgian Dream] party against the Georgian civil sector and the representative of Transparency International Georgia.”
“We condemn the misuse of the Corruption Perceptions Index to disguise poor governance,” said TI chairperson François Valerian, “especially when it masks the dismantling of democratic institutions and attacks on activists.”
The erosion of civil liberties and checks and balances mechanisms, alongside attacks on press freedom, added Valerian, often goes hand in hand with covert forms of corruption like grand corruption and state capture.
“Those truly committed to fighting corruption should have nothing to hide – transparency, strong institutions, and an empowered civil society are essential, or efforts will fall short.”
