It is difficult to acknowledge that you have been a witness to corruption, but it is even sadder to see the results that corruption generates in the most remote and least developed regions of Colombia. Academics assert that the concept of corruption has two focuses: the moral dimension and the evolution of nations. The first refers to the establishment of a relationship between coercion and corruption as a reprehensible situation, while the second views corruption as a typical phenomenon in un-evolved political regimes. However, reality has disproven the latter idea, given the presence of corruption in some of the world's most developed nations. It is thus difficult to understand the causes of corruption, but it is evident that the concept is tied to the violation of the set of rules that determine social practices as well as a challenge to authority, and therefore, to those who have decision-making powers.

This conceptual introduction was intended to illustrate how, during my visit to a small region of the country, something that people said about its development struck me as curious: "All development came to a halt when the direct election of mayors was established." It was strange because I had heard the same thing on other occasions in similar regions located in other parts of Colombia. The difference this time was that, because I had been told the same thing before, I ventured to ask the basis for this assertion. After long conversation, I came to the conclusion that everything is related to the interests of those who govern and to the concept of authority. Before the implementation of direct election of mayors, in these regions a prestigious individual who had the respect of the people of the area would be named mayor. That person would therefore enjoy true authority unmarred by the murky electoral processes (political patronage and manipulation of beliefs). At the same time, that person's prestige implied a greater sense of responsibility and therefore decreased the possibilities for unfair actions towards the people of his or her region. This necessarily shows that democracy is not always adequate when decision-making abilities are unequal, and above all when additional factors pervert decision- making in this respect.

Even though democracy is not always the best form of development, ideally it should be a means for development with fairness, and we should trust that it is the best form. Eliminating corruption is the dream shared by all of us who desire fair development in the world, but doing so is no easy task. Achieving a collective change of mentality and eliminating the prevalence of personal interests over collective ones —which becomes even more difficult with the increase of inequity in our societies— implies working long and hard in cultural and social terms, and, above all, a change in how families develop so that they are not forced to violate their principles in order to gain access to the basic services of a state: safety, health and education.

In this way, the ability to eliminate corruption involves many variables, but in my view the most relevant is the recovery of values, which have been so distorted in our societies. We must recover the value of honesty, which has been lost in the case of Colombia due to the social inequality that reigns in all spheres and regions. We must understand that honesty means doing the right thing even when no one is looking —and not only when others are watching. It is the key to recovering the meaning of that set of rules that determine socially accepted practices and the role of authority in society itself, but also so that both the rules as well as those who follow them do not hurt the members of society and so that parameters for justice are established that do not encourage violations of what has been agreed upon.

Edison Jair Duque-Oliva

Editor in chief - innovar

Fulltime professor. Escuela de Administración y Contaduría Pública, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, sede Bogotá