Brazil: corruption perception index 2012-2023

Brazil's Corruption Perceptions Index score remained stable at 38 points between 2020 and 2022. In 2023, the country scored 36 points. Brazil's Corruption Perception Index is nearly half of Uruguay's, which is considered the Latin American country with the best corruption perception.

This index is a composite indicator that includes data on the perception of corruption in areas such as bribery of public officials, kickbacks in public procurement, embezzlement of state funds, and effectiveness of governments' anti-corruption efforts. The worst possible score is 0, whereas a score of 100 indicates that no corruption is perceived in the respective country.

Lava Jato

Corruption in Brazilian public institutions is a recurrent theme. In 2014, the police operation ‘Car Wash’ debunked one of the biggest corruption scandals in this South American country. High-level executives of the state-owned Petrobras, short for Petróleo Brasileiro S.A., were accepting bribes from mainly construction firms in exchange for contracts. The oil and energy company, one of the most valuable Brazilian brands, saw its revenue at the period dropped significantly due to a plummeting of petroleum prices and the corruption scandals. Besides impacting the economy, with the loss of thousands of jobs, the corruption scandal involved several businessmen and politicians, including ex-presidents from other countries. The construction and engineering company Odebrecht SA was also involved, in 2016 alone it generated around 1.9 billion U.S. dollars in Brazil as a result of bribery.

The ‘Car Wash’ operation added to the recession that was already developing and ushered in deep political unrest in Brazil. It affected the ruling of the Worker’s Party (PT) in addition to government officials such as president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, accused of receiving kickbacks from corporate firms. This development reached Ex-President Dilma Rousseff as well, who was impeached due to charges of manipulating the federal budget to conceal the country’s deficit, and her vice-president and successor as head of government, Michel Temer, who was later arrested also in relation to the ‘Car Wash’ operation.

President Lula elected for the third time

Although accused of corruption during the "Car Wash" operation, former President Lula da Silva had his conviction overturned by the Federal Supreme Court, which ruled that Lula's rights were not respected during the trial. In the 2022 Brazilian elections the former President was once again elected, as he was considered to be the best presidential candidate to fight corruption, with 34 percent of respondents believed Lula was the most qualified one, against 22 percent who believed it was incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro. Despite this, in 2023, a survey showed that 4.5 percent of Brazilians said corruption was the most serious issue the country faced.