The British influential “Economist Intelligence Unit” consulting company has published its annual report on democracy. The report bearing the title “Democracy Index: Revenge of the “deplorables” also addresses the democracy index in Armenia for last year.
“Back, Armenia”
In 2015, the same “Economist Intelligence Unit”, in its annual report on democracy tendencies in the world, called Armenia a “hybrid regime”, i.e. a state system located in the continuum between democracy and authoritarianism. Moreover, in 2015, Armenia ranked 116th with its democracy index, closing the list of hybrid regimes. In other words, Armenia was just one step “behind” in joining the states that received an authoritarian status.
This year Armenia has filled that “gap” and has moved 4 steps behind, appearing in the 120th position. In the aforementioned ranking, the first position belongs to the most democratic state and the 167th to the most authoritarian one). As a result, Armenia’s democracy index has appeared next to those of Nigeria, Mauritania, Kuwait and Cote d’Ivoire.
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In fact, this is the result of disproportionate force and special means used by the Police against peaceful protestors during the resistance in the Police Base in summer of 2016.
Neighbors
The situation with most of the EAEU member countries is much sadder. Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan rank 127th, 134th and 139th. Only Kyrgyzstan has been classified as a hybrid regime this year, ranking 98th in the list.
Among Eastern Partnership countries, Ukraine and Georgia have been classified as hybrid regimes while Moldova has moved one step forward and has been classified as a “flawed democracy”. Apart from Belarus, Azerbaijan is also in the list of authoritarian states together with Armenia, occupying the 148th position.
Anna Pambukhchyan,
“Union of Informed Citizens”