Democracies being replaced with Totalitarian regimes

Written by The Daily Mail on November 26, 2021. Posted in Current News

Democracy is deteriorating across the world, with countries including the US taking undemocratic and ‘unnecessary’ actions to contain the coronavirus pandemic, a report has warned.

‘Many democratic governments are backsliding,’ the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, or International IDEA, said.

The 34-nation organization added that as of August 2021, 64 per cent of countries have taken an action to curb the pandemic that it considers ‘disproportionate, unnecessary or illegal.‘

Among the countries added to the annual list of ‘backsliding’ democracies for the first time is the US, which has undergone a ‘visible deterioration’ since 2019. 

The report said the US was among countries which has imposed ‘measures that amount to democratic violations’, adding that the Covid-19 pandemic has ‘accelerated and magnified’ some of the negative trends.

The Stockholm-based body added that the situation is also getting worse in countries that are not democratic. Autocratic regimes have become ‘even more brazen in their repression,’ free speech has been restricted and the rule of law has been weakened, it said.

In its flagship report on the state of democracy, International IDEA said the number of backsliding democracies has doubled in the past decade, and mentioned in particular the U.S., Hungary, Poland and Slovenia.

Alexander Hudson, a co-author of the report, said: ‘The United States is a high-performing democracy, and even improved its performance in indicators of impartial administration (corruption and predictable enforcement) in 2020.

‘However, the declines in civil liberties and checks on government indicate that there are serious problems with the fundamentals of democracy.’  

The report said that ‘the two years since our last report have not been good for democracy,’ and the achievement reached when democracy became the predominant form of governance ‘now hangs in the balance like never before.’

‘Overall, the number of countries moving in an authoritarian direction in 2020 outnumbered those going in a democratic direction,’ the report said, adding that in the past two years, the world has lost at least four democracies, ‘either through flawed elections or military coups.’

In Europe, the pandemic ‘has placed a strain on democracy’ and some countries where democratic principles were already under threat, it provided an excuse for governments to weaken democracy further.

The report pointed to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Oban’s right to rule by decree without time limit to manage the pandemic and the introduction of prison sentences of up to five years for spreading after the parliament passed a bill.

Europe’s non-democratic governments – it identified Azerbaijan, Belarus, Russia and Turkey – have intensified their already very repressive practices, International IDEA said.

‘The pandemic broadened the pre-existing rift between high-performing democracies in Western Europe and weaker counterparts in Central and Eastern Europe,’ said Sam Van Der Staak, head of Program Regional Europe.

‘That divide will continue to challenge Europe´s unity, as it also faces greater outside pressure from non-democratic superpowers. But its increased democratic isolation also poses opportunities for greater integration and collaboration, as Europe is forced to consider the value of democracy as its core foundational force.’

‘This is the time for democracies to be bold, to innovate and revitalize themselves,’ International IDEA Secretary-General Kevin Casas-Zamora said in a statement.

In Asia, International IDEA said, Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Myanmar have suffered from ‘a wave of growing authoritarianism.’ But democratic erosion has also been found in India, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

‘China’s influence, coupled with its own deepening autocratization, also puts the legitimacy of the democratic model at risk,’ the report said.

Two countries that were on the list last year – Ukraine and North Macedonia – were removed this year after their situations improved.

Two others, Mali and Serbia, left the list because they are no longer considered democracies.

While Myanmar moved from a democracy to an authoritarian regime, Afghanistan and Mali entered this category from their previous label of hybrid governments.

In Africa, democracy declines ‘have undermined remarkable progress made across the continent over the past three decades.’ The pandemic has added pressure on governments to respond to concerns regarding governance, rights and social inequality, it said. It also noted military coups in Chad, Guinea, Mali and Sudan.

The report also noted that half the democracies in the Americas have suffered democratic erosion, with notable declines in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador and the United States.

International IDEA bases its assessments on 50 years of democratic indicators in around 160 countries, assigning them to three categories: democracies (including those that are ‘backsliding’), ‘hybrid’ governments and authoritarian regimes.

For 2021, according to the group’s provisional assessment, the world counts 98 democracies – the lowest number in many years – as well as 20 ‘hybrid’ governments including Russia, Morocco and Turkey, and 47 authoritarian regimes including China, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Iran.

Adding backsliding democracies to the hybrid and authoritarian states, ‘we are talking about 70 percent of the population in the world,‘ Casas-Zamora said.

‘That tells you that there is something fundamentally serious happening with the quality of democracy,’ he added.

The report said the trend towards democratic erosion has ‘become more acute and worrying‘ since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

‘Some countries, particularly Hungary, India, the Philippines and the USA, have (imposed) measures that amount to democratic violations – that is, measures that were disproportionate, illegal, indefinite or unconnected to the nature of the emergency,‘ the report said.

‘The pandemic has certainly accelerated and magnified some of the negative trends, particularly in places where democracy and the rule of law were ailing before the pandemic,’ Casas-Zamora said.

See more here (scroll down below the main article): dailymail

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