The hope is that this could gradually start to change with "people power" and the pledge of war on corruption spreading from Kiev's Maidan.
Frank Vogl, one of the founders of Transparency International and the author of "Waging War on Corruption," said the trial would likely tarnish Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's government.
Frank Vogl is author of Waging War on Corruption: Inside the Movement Fighting the Abuse of Power.
"It destroys the credibility of the war on corruption," said Chris albin-Lackey, a researcher at Human Rights Watch who studies Nigeria.
The periodic firings of disgraced officials have come to seem like the fallout of government infighting, rather than part of a genuine war on corruption.
"We lost the war because of corruption!" (Hawass, in later life, has spoken harshly of Israel; earlier this year, after the invasion of Gaza, he wrote, in Arabic, "The only things that the Israelis have learned from history are methods of tyranny and torture").
In the meantime, Phongthep Thepkanjana, the justice minister, cannot think of any more dramatic victory in the war on corruption than a revision of the regulations concerning gifts to state-sponsored charities.
South Africa has shown that, with a free press and independent courts, it still has a chance of winning the war on corruption, and in many ways, Mrs Madonsela embodies that hope.
In this scenario, "visa wars," revelations of corruption among Russian officials and increased pressure on U.K. companies in Russia will become highly likely.
It is true that German Christian Democracy, unlike Italian Christian Democracy, has survived the end of the cold war, the discovery of corruption, the decline of the church, and the erosion of traditional conservative values in Europe.
