Many of the major judicial investigations that have grabbed the public’s attention and provoked its consternation share a common trait: They all involve the embroilment of political and party officials with shady characters who operate either on the fringes of the law or who are clearly fully entrenched members of the criminal underworld.

There is little that can be said to make light of such phenomena, of the entangled relationships that are the cause of major political scandals or lead to the unexpected or even involuntary involvement of politicians in sensational cases.

What lies at the very root of this problem is the way that political money is thrown about and how cronyism is a dominating factor.

If the country’s politicians cannot be careful enough to track where every cent of their funding comes from, to know exactly whose interests they are serving and with whom they are doing business, then it should come as little surprise when the public forms a less than flattering opinion of political parties and politicians in general.