Thanks to the firing of the multiparty government and restrictions on the media, among other reasons, Nepal has fallen 27 positions on the corruption perception index (CPI) published by Transparency International. According to the CPI 2005 released Tuesday, Nepal now stands 117th out of 159 countries surveyed. Last year, Nepal was 90th out of 146 countries. On a scale of 1 (most corrupt) to 10 (most clean), Nepal scored 2.5 this year and 2.8 in 2004. "The poor performance of Nepal can be attributed in large extent to the continuing political instability in the country," the TI report said. "The royal takeover in February this year, the sacking of the elected government in October 2002 and the bloody civil war have all weakened the country's governance systems and the public's trust in them. Despite constitutional protection of freedom of expression, in practice, the ability of the media to report on corruption is curtailed and other democratic freedoms are severely threatened." Bangladesh and Chad are lowest on the list while Pakistan and Sri Lanka stand in 144th and 82nd positions. Iceland was the \'cleanest' country with a CPI score of 9.7.