Andy Nelson/The Christian Science Monitor/File

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (center) listens as votes are tallied for a Democratic resolution for censure of then-President Bill Clinton. The committee voted four articles of impeachment against him.

For years, the president’s political opponents in the House of Representatives had investigated impeachment as a means of removing him from office. It was clear their ideas about the distribution of power in the American system of government, and how it should be used, were fundamentally different from each other on crucial points.

Finally, members of Congress boiled over when the nation’s chief executive took a particularly provocative political action. As they weighed impeachment articles they considered the nature of the president’s aggressive character. One proposal charged him with making, “with a loud voice, certain intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous harangues” meant to attack Congress itself.

Thus, Andrew Johnson’s formal impeachment began. In 1868, Johnson was impeached in the House and barely survived a Senate trial. The “scandalous harangues” article was included in the charges against him.

Fierce partisanship is a thread that has been woven into every presidential impeachment in U.S. history. It has shown itself in different ways, and had different effects, in the different eras of Presidents Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump.

The partisan discipline of Democrats and Republicans and the shouting and prevalence of the partisan media environment are new and different today. But the sharp party split isn’t unprecedented. In the few impeachment data points the nation has, it’s been always thus.

“The impeachments of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were largely partisan events. ... In the current case, what is being played out is a highly partisan event again,” says former House of Representatives historian Ray Smock.

The impeachment of Johnson

Monday’s impeachment hearing in the Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee, at which majority members presented evidence about President Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine, split along party lines.

Democrats said the president had obviously abused his powers of office by pressing Ukraine to announce investigations helpful to his reelection efforts. President Trump’s efforts constitute “a clear and present danger to our free and fair elections to our national security,” said Daniel Goldman, the top investigative counsel for the House Intelligence Committee, to the Judiciary panel.

Republicans replied that the majority party had twisted its facts to fit their narrative and abused their own powers of process in pursuing the president.

“Democrats are obsessed with impeaching President Trump by any means necessary,” said Stephen Castor, a counsel representing the GOP for the Judiciary and Intelligence committees.

The bitter exchange might have sounded right at home in the deeply split politics of the post-Civil War era.

Johnson – a rare border state Democrat who had remained loyal to the Union – was inclined to be more lenient toward the South, and less supportive of rights for freed slaves, than were the Radical Republicans in Congress.

The conflict ignited when the cantankerous Johnson fired his secretary of War without consulting Congress, as required under a law called the Tenure of Office Act (later found unconstitutional). The House impeached him. Moderate Republicans saved him, with a margin of one vote, in his Senate trial.

The whole process was quite convoluted, say House historians. Rep. Thaddeus Stevens, a bitter antagonist of the president and chair of the House Reconstruction Committee, drove much of the process, taking it out of the hands of the Judiciary Committee.

The dispute was really about many more things than its stated impetus. At heart it was about whose vision for Reconstruction of the South would prevail.

“They didn’t like Johnson because he was Johnson, and because he wasn’t following any plan,” says Dr. Smock.

The Watergate era

More than a century later, the impeachment inquiry into Nixon, a Republican, occurred in very different political circumstances.

In the early 1970s the Democratic Party had regained the strength it had lost in the Civil War era, to the point where it controlled both the House and Senate for years. But both parties were much more mixed than they are today. Moderate and conservative Southerners still constituted a significant portion of Democrats. Moderate Republicans, many from the Northeast, remained a Washington force.

In Congress “everybody was less partisan,” says Laura Blessing, a senior fellow in the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University.

That included the House Judiciary Committee, the panel that ended up driving much of the Nixon impeachment process.

The House vote to begin the initial Nixon inquiry in 1974, notes Dr. Blessing, was 410 to 4. Many Republicans were fine with beginning an investigatory process. But they resisted the notion that what the president had done constituted impeachable offenses.

The “Smoking Gun” tape, which revealed the extent of a long-running cover-up, caused GOP defenses to crumble. Recognizing the inevitable, Nixon resigned.

The impeachment of Clinton

“The Nixon impeachment, at the very, very end, wasn’t really partisan,” says Sarah Binder, a professor of political science at George Washington University.

The Clinton impeachment, however, was.

“Clinton, it was pretty partisan, whole thing,” says Dr. Binder.

It began with a wide-ranging investigation by independent counsel Ken Starr, touching on Mr. Clinton’s involvement in the Whitewater land deal, the firing of the White House Travel Office staff, and alleged mishandling of FBI files.

For Mr. Starr, these were dry holes, says former House historian Dr. Smock.

“Once the Lewinsky scandal broke, they shifted away from what they didn’t find to the crime of perjury for lying about sex in a grand jury,” says Dr. Smock.

By this time, the Great Sorting of American politics was well underway, with Southern conservatives moving to the GOP and Republican moderates switching to the Democrats. Furthermore, Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich pushed the political advantages of confrontation with Democrats. Impeachment seemed like a political winner in that context, even if the Senate would not vote to remove.

House historians contrast this political context with that of President Ronald Reagan and his Iran-Contra affair. Despite clear evidence of an administration that deliberately disobeyed congressional direction, genial Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill, a House lifer and institutionalist, seemed to have little interest in impeachment as a political tool. (No evidence ever surfaced that Reagan knew the extent of secret arms sales to Iran and covert funding of the Contra rebels, the central charges of the scandal.)

In the wake of the Big Sort

Today the Big Sort has largely finished, and the parties are much more ideologically distinct than they were in the mid- to late-20^th century. That makes their conflicts sharper, and in Congress, makes it easier for party leaderships to control votes and enforce party discipline over largely like-minded troops.

With the Trump impeachment inquiry, that’s become even more obvious as the proceedings have moved from the relatively controlled environment of the House Intelligence Committee to the slam-bang roller derby of the Judiciary, a committee populated by “ready-to-rumble folks,” says Casey Burgat, a resident senior fellow in the Governance Project at the R Street Institute.

“They’ve become more party-line supportive than they were 100 years ago,” says Dr. Burgat.

One other big difference affecting the partisanship surrounding the inquiry is the media environment. Conservative talk radio, Fox News, and social media news aimed at all parts of the political spectrum have created a loud, opinionated, inescapable national conversation.

Fox News barely existed at the end of the Clinton impeachment, noted Brian Balogh, a historian at the University of Virginia, during a special impeachment-themed broadcast of the BackStory history podcast.

But if Fox News had existed during the 1970s presidency, it’s likely Nixon would not have had to resign, Dr. Balogh said.

“I do think we are operating in a very different world and I do think the existing of that partisan allegiance, at least going into this impeachment, means it’s going to be a lot harder for folks to change their views,” Dr. Balogh said.

For more than a decade, Mexicans have faced increasingly terrifying acts of violence by organized criminals. From beheadings to rocket-propelled grenades bringing down a military helicopter to thousands of clandestine graves, more than 250,000 people have been brutally murdered by cartel violence here since 2006.

Last month, after nine U.S.-Mexican dual citizens, mostly children, were attacked and killed on a quiet, backcountry road in the northern state of Sonora, President Donald Trump declared in a radio interview that the time had come to designate criminal organizations functioning in Mexico as foreign terrorist organizations (FTO).

This isn’t the first time U.S. officials have proposed slapping the terrorist label on Mexican cartels: It allows the U.S. more legal options in combating the violence on the U.S. border, like going after anyone believed to provide “material support or resources” to cartels. But last month’s proposed change received swift pushback from Mexican officials, fearing a disregard for their sovereignty if the legal designation were approved. Although Mr. Trump announced Friday evening he would “temporarily hold off” on the move, the promise has sparked debate around a key question: Has Mexican cartel violence evolved in such a way that it should be considered terrorism?

Over the past several years, Mexico’s seen a decline of the “old style cartel” model, complete with kingpins and vast organizational structures, says Alejandro Hope, a Mexico City-based expert in organized crime and security. The criminal environment is now made up of smaller gangs and cliques, creating a much more disorderly ecosystem that relies less and less on drugs for income and increasingly on local extortion, kidnapping, or human trafficking. The Trump administration’s ability to freeze assets in the U.S. or block travel – powers that would broaden if an organization were declared a terrorist group – would do little to dismantle a “cartel” that relies on extorting a local tortilla shop in a small Mexican town, even if they do employ terrifying violence, Mr. Hope says.

“If there was a time to designate Mexican cartels as foreign terrorism organizations, this is not it,” he says. “This is probably the worst possible time.”

There’s also the bigger question of semantics. “If everything is terrorism, what is terrorism?” asks Bruce Hoffman, an expert on the topic and professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. “Terrorism isn’t terror. Terror is an emotion.”

Mexican cartels may look and feel like terrorist organizations: They extort, intimidate, vandalize, and instill fear by conducting “heinous forms of violence that perhaps even eclipse ISIS,” Dr. Hoffman acknowledges.

“But even if it scares us, it’s not terrorism if it’s not political,” he says. Mexican cartels are “working to facilitate their money-making operations, not overthrow the government.”

Mexico's Presidency/Reuters

U.S. Attorney General William Barr meets with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the National Palace in Mexico City, Dec. 5, 2019. The day after, President Donald Trump tweeted that he would hold off from classifying Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

Winners and losers

Mr. Trump said he’s been planning for almost three months to designate Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations, due in large part to the number of Americans affected by their violence and illegal activities.

The designation could offer a boost to Mr. Trump ahead of 2020 presidential elections, says Iliana Rodriguez Santibáñez, a professor of international relations at the Tec de Monterrey University in Mexico City. “If there are terrorists on the border, not just criminal groups, that makes his wall all the more pressing,” she says. “It would be really positive for his campaign.”

No doubt, violence here is on the rise, with 2019 on track to become the deadliest year in Mexico. Over the course of just three weeks this fall, 13 policemen were slaughtered in a cartel ambush in the western state of Michoacán, nine women and children were shot and burned to death in the north, and an entire city was put under siege by cartel members trying to free the arrested son of former Sinaloa cartel kingpin “El Chapo.” Despite these jarring developments – and increasing frustration among Mexican citizens who feel they’re not protected – few experts express hope that a U.S. designation of terrorists on Mexican soil would help combat the problem.

“Calling a country home to terrorists implicates that it is weak, that its institutions are vulnerable, and that it’s more or less on its way to becoming a failed state,” says Dr. Rodriguez. The label would hit Mexico’s economy and international relations hard, she says. And although it could inject new resources into the fight against organized crime, after years of combating cartels through military crackdowns, the designation would offer few new approaches.

There are added complications when dealing with a neighbor on the FTO list, as well.

Mexico relies heavily on remittances from the U.S., for example. In the attempt to cut off the movement of cartels’ funds or money laundering, the U.S. might unintentionally freeze bank accounts associated with innocent Mexicans in the U.S. whose families rely on their earnings, Dr. Rodriguez points out.

“The bilateral story between the U.S. and Mexico and the number of Mexicans in the U.S. can’t be minimized” in this discussion, she says.

The designation, if it comes to pass, could force Mexican authorities to be more aggressive in their fight against cartels in certain parts of the country, says Mr. Hope, likely the western state of Jalisco, home of the brutal Jalisco New Generation cartel. But he fears it would more likely “throw a wrench in U.S.-Mexico security cooperation.” History offers up evidence, he says, pointing to a U.S. certification policy in place from the late 1980s that was modified in 2002. It required the U.S. president to certify each year that any major drug-producing and trafficking countries were fully cooperative with counter-drug measures.

“Each year that came around there was a flurry of tension between the U.S. and Mexico, and often cooperation came to a halt,” Mr. Hope says.

“My guess would be that instead of allowing for enhanced cooperation it would make it much more difficult. It would tie the hands of the Mexican government more than it would if you engage them in other ways.”

Editors note: This story has been updated to clarify that President Trump's discussion of FTOs was during a radio interview. 

“There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.”

These were the last words published on the blog of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia before she was murdered in Malta in 2017. But now, her investigation into far-reaching corruption in the island nation, combined with the inquiry into her death, looks set to bear fruit – and bring down a prime minister. Yet Malta is not the only country where rule of law is being challenged within the European Union. How the bloc acts there could shape the broader response to the problem.

Who was Daphne Caruana Galizia?

Ms. Caruana Galizia had led the Panama Papers investigation in Malta, the smallest member in the European Union, and her stories unnerved the highest echelons of power there. The recipient of multiple death threats, she enjoyed police protection, but this was reduced and then cut entirely for 2013 in a move perceived as political retaliation for her anti-corruption work. She was killed when a bomb planted in her car exploded as she drove away from her home in October 2017. 

At the time of her killing, Ms. Caruana Galizia was reportedly investigating the links between local tycoon Yorgen Fenech, a gas deal with Azerbaijan, and two political figures associated with Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. Three men were charged with her murder, though it remains unclear who ordered them to do it. Her family and a network of journalists have doggedly campaigned for justice in the case and pushed on with her investigations.

What triggered the current political crisis?

The dominoes began to fall when Mr. Fenech, Malta’s wealthiest man, was arrested in late November and charged with complicity in Ms. Caruana Galizia’s assassination. Mr. Fenech’s business dealings and government ties were a focal point of the slain journalist’s investigations. The suspect reportedly got tipoffs about the investigation from the government’s chief of staff. 

His arrest triggered political upheaval and street protests against the government, resulting in a string of high-level resignations. Mr. Muscat himself announced Dec. 1 that he would be stepping down as prime minister, although not before mid-January. Critics worry that Mr. Muscat, who oversaw a period of strong economic growth, will use the time that he has left in office to undermine the investigation. Protests have continued even after his announcement.

A European Parliament delegation, which spent 48 hours in Malta on an urgent fact-finding mission, concluded that the integrity of the investigation would be best safeguarded by the immediate resignation of the prime minister. “Killing a journalist is like stabbing democracy,” said Assita Kanko, a member of the European Parliament who was part of the mission.

How will the EU handle Malta? 

Malta’s wide-reaching corruption scandal is both a test and an opportunity to set the tone for new European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at a time when rule of law as a value is brazenly challenged within the European Union. Disciplinary proceedings against Poland and Hungary proved divisive and had little effect. 

Michiel van Hulten, director of Transparency International EU, says the crisis in Malta showcases the “need to equip the EU with supervisory powers and the necessary autonomy to intervene in cases of repeated anti-money-laundering failings and inappropriate response from national authorities.” One option on the table would be to make EU funds conditional on upholding the rule of law.

EU funds, according to academic Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, were part of the problem in Malta, as they relaunched cronyism in a country that had made a transition toward relatively good governance. For nations that join the EU when still relatively poor, she notes, EU funds can prove a curse rather than a blessing.

“Perhaps what the EU should reflect [on] is how to mitigate unintended consequences and reduce feeding corruption before punishing it, where it has few means,” says  Professor Mungiu-Pippidi, the chair of democracy studies at the Hertie School in Berlin. “In the end, it is the Maltese justice system which has to perform.”

Youssef Boudlal/Reuters

Students wait to receive their diplomas, following a graduation ceremony for students at University of Rabat, Morocco, Feb. 2, 2019. Unrest in the kingdom has spurred a youth exodus. Over 22,000 young Moroccans went abroad to search for work in 2018.

Hassine grins as he lists Morocco’s many positives: a tolerant society, diverse ethnicities and religions living together in harmony, state-of-the-art infrastructure, a modern constitution, and a monarchy once hailed as an exception for pushing through political reforms. 

So why are so many young Moroccans like Hassine desperate to emigrate abroad?

As many in the kingdom are finding, limited democracy and political openness alone do not guarantee solutions to some long-standing societal problems. And political parties are learning that governing and reaching consensus are not as easy as pushing for reforms.

“We love our country, and many of us believe that in the long run it will be on the right path,” says Hassine, 27, as he sells a phone card from his roadside Casablanca kiosk. “But the reality right now is, if you want a degree or a job, you got to get out to have a future.”  

Indeed Hassine, who asked that his full name not be used, says he has accepted a job as an engineer in France and is set to leave soon.

Many Moroccans say political parties have left them behind as they jockey for seats, influence, and ministerial portfolios. Others claim that political appointees and local governments lack experience.

“You talk to these local elected officials about urgent issues facing the community, and they look like they don’t even understand a word,” says a former official turned activist, who declined to use his name. “It feels as if you are speaking to the mailman rather than the mayor.”

But analysts believe that the failures of political parties have exposed the limitations of the much-hailed royal reforms.

“The average Moroccan citizen today has limited expectations of these parties because it is widely understood that they are not in charge, nor do they hold the majority of the power,” says Yasmina Abouzzohour, a Brookings fellow, in an email. “It is widely believed that only the monarchy itself can bring about real change, be it political or economic.”

The Moroccan exception

When the Arab Spring protests that shook the region swept into Morocco in February 2011, King Mohammed VI took a different tack than other Arab leaders.

Rather than launch a security crackdown, the Moroccan king headed off potential unrest by getting out in front of the movement. He called for a new constitution, political and social reforms, an elected government, an independent judiciary, and even a reduction in his own powers.

Passed overwhelmingly in a national referendum, the new Moroccan Constitution was held up as a landmark power-sharing arrangement that recognized the rights of minorities and identities such as the Amazigh (Berbers) – a major demand of protesters.

It led Western analysts and diplomats to dub the model the Moroccan exception.

Yet eight years on, several government coalitions and failed campaign promises later, many of the main concerns that fueled the protests have not gone away; in fact, many have gotten worse.

Schools are struggling, and the buildings are decrepit. Public hospitals are under stress and in short supply – wait times can be an entire day to see a nurse. Inequality is on the rise.

While the unemployment rate dipped to 9.8% in 2018, among youth (those between ages 15 and 24) it stands at 26%, and even 15.5% of university graduates are without jobs.

As of 2017, Morocco had 7.3 doctors per 10,000 inhabitants, half the World Health Organization’s standard of 1 doctor per 650 inhabitants.

“While it is true that abject poverty is no longer an issue, the right to decent health care, schools, and decent housing is becoming out of reach for most Moroccans,” says Youssef Raissouni, secretary-general of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights.

At the heart of frustrations among many Moroccans is the inability of political parties to pass laws to improve schools and hospitals and to create jobs.

The king urged the prime minister, Saadeddine Othmani to bring in “new blood” and ministers “chosen on merit and competence” after a mix of political appointees and technocrats failed to come up with solutions after nearly two decades.

Complaints of corruption

Underneath the frustration are quiet, but growing, complaints of corruption.

In Transparency International’s 2019 Global Corruption Barometer, 53% of Moroccans said they believe corruption is on the rise in their country – double the 26% rate in the 2015 survey.

When they were asked to name the most corrupt institutions or officials, the most common response was “members of parliament” at 41%, followed by the prime minister at 39% – the latter an increase from 20% four years ago.

Although few are willing to name names, many Moroccans blame political parties and economic “elites” for benefiting themselves while ignoring their duty to serve the people.

“You have to have connections or pay off the right people to get the license you need,” says Hassine.

Meanwhile the kingdom, heavily reliant on agriculture, has been affected by climate change and drought – and according to a World Bank report released in October, nearly 9 million people, or 24% of the population, are now at risk of poverty.

Amid reports of an increasing income gap, language is also a social divider. While universities are almost exclusively in French, Morocco’s public schools have exclusively been taught in Arabic, making the educational divide stark.  

Middle-class families pin their hopes on sending their children to private schools to ensure they reach university. Over one-third of Moroccan schools are private, and tuition can cost $200 per month per child, a burden on families in a country where the average salary is $500 per month.

“You have to choose between rent and your children’s education,” says Mohammed Ben Youssef, a clerk who also drives a taxi to put his two children in private school, but says he will have to pull them out this year. “And the rich keep getting richer.”

Youth exodus

The uneasy situation has spurred a youth exodus. Over 22,000 young Moroccans went abroad for work in 2018, according to government statistics; it is believed that the number who have migrated illegally is much higher.

France, Spain, Ukraine, Chile, China – there is no place too far for young Moroccans to go.

“We just want a chance to study and work so we can one day start a family and prepare a better future for our own children,” says Youssef, a recent college graduate.

In the 2019 Arab Barometer survey, a research project that seeks to provide reliable data on Arab world attitudes, 70% of Moroccans ages 18 to 29 expressed a desire to emigrate – the highest of any country in a list that included war-torn Yemen.

“When we go to sleep, we all share one dream: to emigrate and start fresh somewhere else,” says Youssef, who works in a hair salon in Casablanca.

Royal response

With the king no longer holding a constitutional role in politics yet still largely held responsible for the state of the nation, there is a sense of urgency in the palace.

Aside from shepherding a political opening, the king is credited with many achievements, particularly infrastructure megaprojects such as highways, high-speed rail, ports, renewable energy, and urban development.

Yet in a speech marking his 20-year reign in July, King Mohammed VI noted that the economic development and reforms have “not, unfortunately, been felt by all segments of the Moroccan society.”

The monarch tasked a new committee with an ambitious list of projects: create a new development model to tackle social inequality, overhaul taxation, and improve the kingdom’s education, health, and agriculture sectors.

The fresh push for reforms comes amid allegations by local and international rights groups of an erosion in freedoms of expression and assembly in the kingdom.

When discussing political developments, many citizens refer not to the Arab Spring, but to the 2016-17 Rif protests – a movement where residents of the predominantly Berber northern region pushed for greater autonomy and development. It ended in clashes with security services and 20-year prison sentences for activists.

Surfacing dissent

The memory hangs like a pall over political discussions; many discouraged young Moroccans have given up on activism, saying, “There is no point.”

But as the palace and politicians scramble to push through reforms, public frustrations are finding ways to simmer to the surface.

A viral rap song venting anger over inequality and poverty was released in October, which landed the Moroccan rapper in jail.

In his song “Aacha el Chaab,” or “Long Live the People,” rapper Gnawi takes on poverty, housing, drug use, and political prisoners. Observers say he broke a taboo by making thinly veiled criticisms of the king, while expressing solidarity with Rif protesters.  

Police arrested Gnawi – whose real name is Mohamed Mounir – 48 hours after the song hit the internet, ostensibly for a separate YouTube rant in which he allegedly insulted the police. 

In November a court sentenced the rapper to one year in jail for “insulting public officials.” Rights activists insist the real reason is his critical lyrics.

Since its release Oct. 29, the song has garnered 16 million views on YouTube.

Reuters

People buy seafood at the Athens' main fish market.

Take it from a country that knows – it is possible to restore lost trust.

On Dec. 9, a day designated as International Anti-Corruption Day, a new Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, hailed his country’s latest step in battling corruption. For the first time, Greece will have a single, independent body to probe government wrongdoing. The so-called Transparency Authority, Mr. Mitsotakis said, will also help restore the qualities needed in public life to regain Greece’s credibility.

The new graft-busting agency is one more milestone in Greece’s odyssey to redeem its reputation. A decade ago, the government admitted it had been lying about the size of the national debt. Instead of being 3.7% of gross domestic product, it was more than 15%. The falsification of official data shook financial markets and almost broke up the European Union’s single-currency zone.

Europe’s economy spiraled into recession. Its leaders then worked hard to instill a culture of integrity in Greece along with providing it with massive bailouts – the largest ever to a country on the brink of bankruptcy.

That work is steadily paying off. Almost every political party now supports open and rational economic policies, such as creation of the new anti-corruption agency. The government is running a budget surplus that is verifiable. This year, the Athens stock exchange could be the world’s best performer. Greece is again borrowing from financial markets on very favorable terms. And its economic growth could reach 3% next year.

To be sure, unemployment, tax evasion, and the Greek debt remain high. The policies of forced austerity were necessary but they took a heavy toll in increased poverty. Nearly 40% of bank loans are considered “nonperforming.” And about a quarter of Greeks say corruption is still the most significant issue.

Yet Greece’s democracy has proved resilient. “The real efforts and the real courage were shown by the people of Greece,” said former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker last June. “Greece is in its rightful place at the beating heart of Europe and of the euro.”

Greece also taught the EU something about integrity. For years, said Mr. Juncker, its member states had resisted tighter rules on verifying their official financial statistics. “That was a major mistake,” he said. “Would we have done the right thing, we would never have experienced the Greek crisis as we did.”

As it is, the EU is celebrating the “Greek miracle” of recovery – in both its economy and its credibility. As Europe’s lost sheep, Greece is now found and flourishing in a new spirit of accountability and transparency.