Political corruption, that plague that does not cease. At the end of 2010, the Attorney General's Office reported that 730 investigations are still open against politicians for corruption: 264 against PSOE politicians, 200 against PP, 43 against Coalición Canaria, 30 against CIU, 24 against Partido Andalucista, 20 against IU, 17 against group Independent Liberal (GIL), 7 against Unión Mallorquina, 4 against Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, 3 against Bloque Nacionalista Galego and 3 against PNV. Almost all the acronyms of the ballot boxes are in this sinister ranking. At the end of 2009 a similar balance was recorded. It would be worrying if the media could put this chronicle in the "freezer", to take it out every end of the year and publish it as it is, as it is done with events that are repeated regularly and in foreseeable circumstances.

Nobody is free from this cancer: national and regional parties, big and small, in power and in the civil service examination, although it is evident that power, with the consequent access to public money, facilitates crime. Citizens follow with interest and uneasiness the development of the denunciations and investigations, although the media coverage is not always related to the true scope of the case. It is enough to compare, for example, the diffusion given to the Camps suits affair with the silence surrounding the biggest scandal in terms of the money involved: the collection of more than fifty million euros in urban development commissions by the successive mayors of Ciempozuelos, a matter that has not been heard of since it came to light a couple of years ago. It seems that this town in Madrid is an unimportant piece on the national political chessboard. Or for once, and in an exceptional way, perhaps it has managed to keep the secret of the summary.

The managers or treasurers of the political parties do not have it easy. It could be investigated whether this function attracts corrupt individuals in advance, willing to do whatever it takes to fill the party's coffers at any price -without neglecting their own pockets, as politeness does not take away the courage-, or whether it is rather the function that ends up corrupting honest and well-intentioned people, who succumb to the pressures. The efforts made by their parties to save them, once their dealings have been discovered, are pitiful, as can be seen in the cases of Bárcenas and Cornide. By contrast, I am thinking of what happened to Christoph Böhr, President of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the German Land of Rhineland-Palatinate. A few months ago, irregular payments amounting to 400,000 euros in connection with the 2006 election campaign came to light. Böhr had to resign immediately, and the CDU is cooperating with the public prosecutor's office in order to clarify the facts and establish responsibility. German law allows the President of the Bundestag to impose a fine of up to three times the amount defrauded, and the CDU has been quick to say that it will accept the punishment and will not appeal.

The human condition is the same everywhere, and politics has always attracted the unscrupulously ambitious. No system has yet been found for selecting candidates and letting in only the competent and honest. Plato, when in the maturity of his thought he wrote about politics, proposed that the wisest should govern, who, of course, would have to renounce their own family and patrimony. In his old age, chastened by experiences and failures, the Greek philosopher recognizes that only by chance do the most honest actually come to power.

We have not advanced much in this respect since Plato's time, and it will not be easy to change human nature. But we can influence the conditions of the game, the political culture, and make it more difficult for the corrupt and make them know what they are exposed to. The most established democracies in our European environment show us that this goal is feasible. They have scoundrels, as we do, but the system - the political class itself, the judiciary, the media, public opinion as a whole - expels them as soon as they are identified. A mature political culture is not established by decree: it is created on a daily basis, with the effort of everyone. Not much can be expected in this regard from the political parties themselves, which are judge and jury. It is the turn of civil society: the time has come to wake up and stand up.