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The Economist: Belarus Lags Behind Zimbabwe And Venezuela In Democracy

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The Economist: Belarus Lags Behind Zimbabwe And Venezuela In Democracy
PHOTO: RADIO SVABODA

Democracy Index for 2018 was published.

The analytical department of The Economist magazine published the EIU Democracy Index for 2018.

In the rating, 165 independent states and two territories were divided into four groups: full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime and authoritarian regime. Belarus belongs to the last group – we took the 137th place in the ranking.

Analysts have calculated the level of democracy by five criteria, according to which Belarus received such estimates:

electoral process and pluralism (0,92 из 10);

civil liberties (2,35);

functioning of government (2,86);

political participation (3,89);

political culture (5,63).

As a result, Belarus scored 3.13 and was ranked 137th. We are lagging behind Venezuela and Zimbabwe, but we are ahead of Cuba, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. Last year we scored same 3.13. We were rated highest in 2014 with 3.69.

"Belarus, Azerbaijan and the four central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) remain dictatorships, most of whose leaders have stayed in place for decades. We expect little to no improvement in the scores for these countries over the coming years, as there appears to be no credible possibility in any of them of the political opposition gaining power," – the authors of the rating write.

The situation in our western neighbors is much better: Lithuania ranks 36th, Latvia is on the 38th place, Poland is on the 54th. They were included into a group of countries with flawed democracies. Ukraine got into the hybrid regime group and ranked 84th with the same score as last year. Russia is in 144th place, and last year it was on the 135th.

The most democratic countries in the world are, of course, in Scandinavia: Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand and Denmark. Worst of all things are in the DPRK, Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (such an irony), the Central African Republic and Chad.

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