Tom Griffin

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Breaking news from Holyrood:

The SNP's £33bn plans fell on the casting vote of the presiding officer after being tied at 64 votes to 64.

The government won the support of the Tories but the two Green MSPs withdrew their backing shortly before the vote.

Finance Secretary John Swinney said he would bring the Budget Bill back to parliament "within days".

Labour and the Liberal Democrats voted against the spending plans, saying they were inadequate to see Scotland through the economic downturn.

The Tories, who won a £60m concession for their town centre regeneration scheme initiative, backed the budget - and blamed Labour for its rejection.

Independent MSP Margo MacDonald also voted against the budget.

High drama, but given the close margin the Scottish Government will surely be able to get an extra vote from somewhere in the coming days.

Stephen Zunes

There is a quiet revolution going on in the international struggle against corruption and for greater transparency in government.

Two years ago, I attended my first International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC), sponsored Transparency International and other groups, which takes place every other year. The location was Guatemala City, a country where the per capita annual income is only slightly more than the registration, hotel and air fare of most participants. Sponsors included Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch/Shell and other corporations whose own record of upholding legal and ethical standards is far from pristine.

There were a number of sparsely-attended workshops during the four-day conference featuring participants who emphasized the importance of grass roots struggles to fight corruption: Walden Bello, Alejandro Bedana, Shaazka Beyerle, Giorgi Meladze and a handful of others spoke about the successes of grassroots movements in such countries as the Philippines, Nicaragua, Turkey, and Georgia struggling against official corruption. However, the overall emphasis at the conference was on strengthening laws, better oversight by international organizations, stricter sanctions by foreign governments and corporations against corrupt local officials, and other top-down solutions.

What a difference two years can make.

This year's IACC, which just concluded in Athens, took on a very different tone. Though the corporate sponsorship and high visibility of current and former government officials was still enough to give one pause, there were an unprecedented number of participants from civil society: human rights activists, feminists, veterans of nonviolent action campaigns, journalists from alternative media, environmental campaigners, advocates of debt relief, and - despite the European location - and unprecedented number of participants from the global south.

Shaazka Beyerle

The 13th International Anti-Corruption Conference is over, a few participants are bumping into one another at the Akropolis and on Syntagma (Constitution) Square, the warm sun shines overhead, and Athenians can be spotted still swimming in the enveloping blue Mediterranean.

On the last day, while I "manned" the exhibit table for the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), a modest woman with a kind face and big smile came up to me. She told me she had wanted to stop by earlier. Her name is Phyllis Muema, she is with the Kenya Community Support Centre in Mombasa, and she gave permission to be identified. As we chatted, I told her about a comment made by a another Kenyan during a session organized by ICNC on the creative, brave ways in which civilians have mobilized and engaged in civil resistance to break the violence-corruption nexus in their societies, for example, in Sicily (mafias) and Guatemala (narco-cartels). (Vanessa Ortiz posted impressions about this session earlier.)

During the panel discussion, an elegantly attired man, whom I was later told (but cannot verify) was a Kenyan member of parliament, asserted that it was the violence in Kenya that created the urgency and impetus for the negotiations and solution to the political conflict following the contested presidential elections last December. I relayed the story to Phyllis, and asked her what she thought. "Well," she said, "the power-sharing agreement is for only 210 people - those in the parliament. It's not power-sharing by the people for the people. Their [parliamentarians'] needs were met, namely to sit in the Parliament."

"Were there other options available?" I queried. She argued that no dialogue or negotiations were attempted before the violence escalated ten months ago. And this was not for lack of good people, as she believes that there were a number of Kenyans and other Africans based on the continent with solid diplomatic skills. After much bloodshed, finally, the two sides ended up in negotiations mediated by Kofi Annan - something that could have been attempted from the outset.

Phyllis is concerned with repercussions the post-election violence is having on Kenyan society, particularly young people. "Violence breeds violence." She said that youth burned three hundred schools over the past few months. "They learned from their parents' actions last January. When they have a problem with the school administration, they burn the school." In her view, many people were also manipulated by the politicians during the violence. "The young men who were used were poor and unemployed. Many were paid...While many who fought now don't know why they fought, now forty government ministers (an expanded number) are fighting for themselves." As for the victims who lost their lives, she'd like to see restitution. She stated that some militia-men are in jail but have not been tried. "And the politicians who incited and funded the militias have gone back to the city. They don't take responsibility for what happened and are sitting in the best hotels drinking coffee."

Vanessa Ortiz

The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, of which I'm a part, convened a panel during the IACC on the nexus of corruption and violence. Authoritarian regimes aren't the only systems in which people can live under extreme repression. In post-conflict states, often fledgling democracies, citizens are often subjected to violence perpetrated by paramilitary groups, gangs, narco-cartels, organized crime, insurgents, and state security forces, enduring the tyranny of multiple "authoritarian" forces.

Endemic corruption functions as an enabler of violent groups, which engage in illicit activities to make money and acquire weapons, or a by-product of their efforts to capture local and national state institutions and security forces such as the police. Violent insurgents use poverty and injustice to justify their actions which only sustains the cycle of violence.

But are people powerless in such situations? Two on-the-ground activists reported on their efforts to break this cycle. Claudia Samayoa, Co-founder of the Unit of Protection of Human Rights Defenders in Guatemala, presented two cases of innovative grass roots campaigns engaging in civil resistance to break up the corruption-violence nexus, resist violent repression, and foster social and economic development. Dressed in traditional local dress, Kingsley Bangwell, Founder of Youngstars Foundation International and an Ashoka Fellow, spoke passionately about the role of youth in fighting corruption and "restiveness" in the Niger-Delta. He offered many ideas of how to engage youth in the fight against the insurgent groups multiplying in the Niger-Delta.

Shaazka Beyerle

The setting - the Megaron Athens International Conference Centre - is majestic, the weather is balmy, the cafes are full day and night, and the halls are smoky - this being Greece, where lighting up is considered a fundamental human right. Even before the 13th International Anti-Corruption Conference officially started, hundreds of people had already gathered and special sessions and workshops were under way. There was energy and, dare I say it, anticipation in the air. 

The IACC, as it's known in the anti-corruption community, is held in a different city every two years. Over a thousand people from around the world - who managed to get Greek visas, for some Herculean feat - have gathered here. One could say this is a Who's-Who of the anti-corruption realm - from modest, every day heroes in the trenches to researchers, lawyers tracing stolen assets, trade unionists, NGO'ers, brave journalists, representatives of multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and United Nations, to senior development and foreign aid agency officers, and dedicated, often courageous, officials and judges. Interestingly, some of the best-dressed delegates happen to be government representatives from some of the poorest African countries. 

This year's IACC may well mark two significant developments in the anti-corruption struggle. First, the conference is focusing on the inter-related nature of corruption and other global challenges, including climate change, sustainable development, human security and peacebuilding. As activists in the grass-roots know, corruption does not occur in a vacuum. One can meet many from civil society here who have to wear multiple hats. Fighting corruption invariably also involves working around issues of human rights, economic justice, land reform, democratic governance, environmental protection, free and open media, independent judiciaries, organized violence and extortion, and so forth. One activist half-joked that she was disappointed she hadn't yet been arrested. Another said that, in her country, they feared going to prison more than being killed, though the latter outcome was not hypothetical. 

The IACC's programme reflects the shifting landscape of the anti-corruption realm. There is a growing recognition that fighting corruption is a human enterprise as much as it is an institutional and legislative effort. A relatively new World Bank report lauds "efforts to increase the citizens' capability to monitor and challenge abuses of the system and to inform the citizens about their rights and entitlements." In the first plenary today, Amnesty International's Secretary General, Irene Khan, set the stage by pointing to the importance of citizen participation. 

How that is translated into practical measures - may be less clear. One reason is because civil society is not a monolithic entity. Civil society is organic. It encompasses the collective, bottom-up initiatives in which activists, their allies and ordinary citizens are involved. Hand-in-hand with citizen participation goes something even more fundamental - civic empowerment and action, such as noncooperation, civil disobedience, protests, digital technology communications, and low risk mass actions.  

As always, real life precedes analysis. For example, today an overflowing room learned how a Filipino public services trade union together with teachers and civic organizations organized over one million boy and girl scouts to count textbooks and monitor deliveries of supplies. Another campaign in Egypt also gave attendees a vivid glimpse at civic empowerment on the ground. Founded by outraged women, Shayfeen.com (meaning "we see you") mobilized volunteers and ordinary citizens to document election fraud in real time using mobile phone SMS and video, and YouTube. Stay tuned for more details about these and other civic campaigns to fight corruption.