Editing Political corruption (section)

===Patronage===
{{Main|Patronage}}
[[File:John Q. Adams.jpg|thumb|alt=The sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams' "corrupt bargain" of 1824 is an example of patronage.|The sixth [[President of the United States|president]] of the [[United States]], [[John Quincy Adams]]' "[[corrupt bargain]]" of 1824 is an example of patronage.]]
Patronage refers to favoring supporters, for example with government employment. This may be legitimate, as when a newly elected government changes the top officials in the administration in order to effectively implement its policy. It can be seen as corruption if this means that incompetent persons, as a payment for supporting the regime, are selected before more able ones. In nondemocracies many government officials are often selected for loyalty rather than ability. They may be almost exclusively selected from a particular group (for example, [[Sunni]] Arabs in [[Saddam Hussein]]'s Iraq, the [[nomenklatura]] in the [[Soviet Union]], or the [[Junker]]s in [[Imperial Germany]]) that support the regime in return for such favors. A similar problem can also be seen in Eastern Europe, for example in [[Romania]], where the government is often accused of [[patronage]] (when a new government comes to power it rapidly changes most of the officials in the public sector).<ref>{{cite news|last=Gallagher |first=Tom |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443792604577572910124653818 |title=The EU Can't Ignore Its Romania Problem |newspaper=The Wall Street Journal |date=2012-08-09 |access-date=2012-08-10}}</ref>
<!-- The above was replaced 2014-09-03 with the following reference to Pakistan.  This is unacceptable, because it is potentially libelous without a citation to a credible source.  I'm placing this comment here, because the edit was made anonymously, i.e., by an IP number -- and it was made it 2 steps, which meant that I couldn't just revert it.  If the author is invited to insert this change here again with an appropriate source but without destroying the reference to Romania.  It might be appropriate to add sections on both Romania and Pakistan to the Wikipedia article on "Patronage".  If that was done, it might be appropriate to delete the reference to Romania here, retaining the one to Pakistan -- provided it was supported by solid reference(s). // Addition deleted:  "[[Pakistan]], where the government is often accused of patronage; namely Benazir, Zardari and Mian Nawaz Sharif are labeled corrupt politicians having numerous cases of corruption. Currently the Prime minister of Pakistan Mian Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif are accused of murder."  -->