People's trust in politicians at all-time low in India: WEF

India ranked 115th among 148 countries across the globe, has lost almost 30 ranks since 2010 on global competitiveness

Even as the 16th Lok Sabha elections  approach, a recent study by the World Economic Forum (WEF) says people’s trust in politicians in India has hit an all-time low in 2013.

“The trust of the public in politicians has been eroding since 2009,” the WEF said in The Global Competitiveness Report, 2013-14. This was when the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) took charge for a second time, in May 2009. Among 148 countries across the globe, India ranked 115th, its all-time low. “India has lost almost 30 ranks on this indicator since 2010,” said the report.

Even a politically unstable country like Pakistan was above India in this regard and stood at 110th position. On a scale of one-seven, the respondents gave India 2.2 points, the lowest among the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) economies, except Brazil, which stood at 136th position with a score of 1.9. Here, one meant extremely low ethical standard of politicians and seven extremely high. Singapore topped the chart with 6.2 points.

TRUST DEFICIT

• Since 2010, India has lost 27 positions and ranked 115 in 2013 in terms of public trust in politicians
• In 2010, Pakistan (91) was behind India (88), but now has surpassed the country by 5 positions
• India is on the 94th position when it comes to favouritism in decisions of government officials
• When it comes to diversion of public funds, India is ranked 98th, just ahead of South Africa (99)
• In terms of judicial independence from influences of government officials, India (40th rank) was positioned better than China (57th rank) but not South Africa (28th rank)

“Discontent within the business community remains high about lack of reforms and the perceived inability of the government to push them through,” said the report.

The study says, based on the parameter of ‘diversion of public funds’ due to corruption, India ranked 98th and had 2.8 points, the same as that of Nepal and South Africa, indicating this diversion is a common phenomena in the country.

India ranked 94th when it came to the government showing favours to well-connected firms.

The study is based on large set of data sourced from various international organisations and from its own annual Executive Opinion Survey of 13,000 business leaders across the globe.

India was also among those where investors felt heavily burdened with administrative requirements such as permits, regulators, etc. On this count, India stood at 104th position, preceding Nepal (103rd rank).

However, in terms of judicial independence, India (40th rank) was positioned better than China (57th rank) but not South Africa (28th rank).

“Clearly, people are losing confidence in the political system and it is time to win back the faith of public in the system and one of the ways is transparency”, said Pankaj Gupta, national secretary of Aam Aadmi Party.

The business community respondents, involved in the research process, were not happy with the government as they felt more than half of the problems for doing business in the country were centred towards the government or policy makers.

The factors included inefficient government bureaucracy (17.5 per cent), corruption (17.3 per cent), tax regulations (7.6 per cent), policy instability (6.6 per cent), government instability (2.8 per cent) and restrictive labor regulations (5.8 per cent).

The WEF has divided the report into 12 parts (also known as pillars), which include institution, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation.

The government also forms a part of the institution pillar and, according to the report, is crucial for “factor-driven economies”, one of which is India. India ranked 72 in institutional pillar, which is two places down from the 2012-13 report, with a score of 3.86 out of seven.

This report comes at a time when the country will hold general elections in May next year.