Global Integrity Report: Egypt - 2010

This peer-reviewed country report includes:

Integrity Indicators Scorecard: Scores, scoring criteria, commentary, references, and peer review perspectives for more than 300 Integrity Indicators.

Reporter's Notebook: An on-the-ground look at corruption and integrity from a leading local journalist.

Corruption Timeline: Ten years of political context to today's corruption and integrity issues.

HIGHLIghts

Even before the citizen-led revolution that rocked Egypt in January 2011, the country had been experiencing a slow and steady decline in the performance of its anti-corruption and transparency institutions. While there were several factors that contributed to the revolution, Global Integrity’s data for Egypt from 2006 to 2010 suggest that a lack of government transparency and accountability helped to exacerbate many of the country’s long-standing governance deficiencies. Since our last assessment in 2008, Global Integrity researchers have found that the country has scored lower in all but two categories of indicators. Not only are public access to information regulations non-existent, there are in fact several laws depriving citizens of their right to access government information and basic government records. The media are often of little help for citizens seeking an unbiased view of government performance. Moreover, citizens often face challenges to posting content online through government censorship (there is a separate government unit in the Ministry of Interior charged with combating crimes related to computers and the web). Indeed, there has been a significant decline in the Egyptian media’s ability to freely report on corruption since Global Integrity’s last report in 2008. Effective conflicts of interest safeguards covering senior officials remain elusive, as does transparency in the budget process.

From the Reporter's Notebook: Media entities in Egypt were caught between two major government factions. The new, and younger, faction supported Gamal Mubarak for the presidential election, scheduled to take place in early 2011. This faction provided a platform that was open to the privately owned media debating the peaceful exchange of power. In opposition, the old guard wanted to maintain the status quo and keep Hosni Mubarak, Gamal Mubarak’s father, in power for a sixth term. They believed that free speech and open debate has negatively affected the regime’s image, both internally and externally.