“The Economist”: Situation with democracy in Belarus deteriorated

This year Belarus has taken the 132th position out of 167 possible in the Democracy Index 2008 of the world-renowned British weekly “The Economist”.

Belarus’s democracy ranges among Bahrain, Angola and Cote d’Ivoire.

Democracy Index 2008 is a rating of the world countries’ democracies, Radio Svaboda informs. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index is based on five categories:

a) electoral process and pluralism;

b) civil liberties;

c) the functioning of government;

d) political participation;

e) political culture.

10 point mean ideal democracy, and 0 mean total autocracy. For the first time this index was created 2 years ago, so a comparison could be made this year. Over the last two years democracy index has dropped in 68 countries, increased in 56 countries, and remained unchanged in 43 countries.

The British weekly classifies forms of government into:

full democracies (30 countries);

flawed democracies (50 countries);

hybrid regimes (36 countries);

authoritarian regimes (51 countries).

This year Belarus took 132nd position with a score of 3.34, and is among such countries as Bahrain, Angola, Algeria and Cote d’Ivoire. Two years ago Belarus was at the 128th position in the index.

According to the experts of “The Economist”, the most democratic countries are Sweden, Norway, Iceland and the Netherlands.