Economist Intelligent Unit reports

Bangladesh’s democratic status declines further

Bangladesh’s democratic status declines further

Dhaka, Jan 31 (Just News): With the global trend of disappointment with "actually existing democracy", the state of Bangladesh democracy has exposed a further slump in popular participation in running institutions and socio-political activities.

The country's ranking has fallen eight notches -- to 92nd among 167 nations in 2017 from 84 in 2016, according to Economist Intelligent Unit's (EIU's) latest "Democracy Index: Free Speech Under Attack".

With its government branded as a hybrid regime, Bangladesh's democracy has also declined compared to its ranking in 2007 when its position was 75th.

In 2007, a military-controlled government was in office in Bangladesh while the country witnessed a one-sided controversial election boycotted by all opposition parties in 2014.

In the 2017 index, Bangladesh has scored poorly, 5.43 in a scale of 10. Its score was 5.87 in 2010, 5.86 in 2013, 5.78 in 2014 and 5.73 in 2016.

Bangladesh is also bracketed as one of three countries, apart from Pakistan and the Philippines, where journalists faced "physical and death threats on a regular basis", says the EIU report. "There have been hundreds of attacks in Bangladesh against journalists and bloggers and several have been murdered," it observed.

The year 2017 also saw decline in global average score to 5.48 from 5.52 the year before in the index which is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture.

The index has called only 19 countries as "full democracy", 57 as "flawed democracy", 39 as "hybrid regime" and 52 as "authoritarian regime".

The EIU report has quoted Larry Diamond, one of the leading democracy scholars, as saying that we have been going through a "democracy recession".

.Such a reality has been reflected in "declining popular participation in elections and politics", "weaknesses in the functioning of government", "declining trust in institutions", "dwindling appeal of mainstream representative parties", "growing influence of unelected, unaccountable institutions and expert bodies", "widening gap between political elites and electorates", "decline in media freedoms" and "erosion of civil liberties, including curbs on free speech".

North Korea, Syria, Chad, Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo have been placed at the bottom of the list.

Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand and Denmark have been ranked the best five democracies in the world today.

(Justnews/ys/2350)