Economist's Democracy Index: Iran ranked at the bottom of the list

On Thursday, February 11, the Economist Intelligence Unit published a report on the state of democracy in the world and ranked Iran on the same level as Yemen and Libya, in 154th place.

The report was produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research and analysis arm of The Economist Group, a sister company to the British publication The Economist.

According to this report, only Afghanistan, Myanmar, North Korea, Congo, Central African Republic, Syria, Turkmenistan, Chad, Laos, Equatorial Guinea, and Tajikistan are in a worse situation than Iran.

In its rankings, the Economist Intelligence Unit examines various options such as electoral process and pluralism, government performance, participation and political culture, as well as civil liberties, and scores range from zero to 10.

Iran's democracy index last year was 1.95, the lowest figure for Iran since 2010. Afghanistan is at the bottom of the table with a score of 0.32, and Norway is at the top of the table with 9.75.

The Democracy Index and Iran’s position in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s ranking have declined more rapidly since 2018. In the Middle East, Israel has the best index, Syria the worst, and then Iran. All Gulf Arab countries are better off than Iran, and the report says that some of them, like Qatar, have also made progress in terms of democracy.

Iran's score is based on several components. In Iran, the electoral process and pluralism index scores zero, the government performance index scores 2.5, political participation scores 3.89, cultural participation scores 1.88, and finally, civil liberties scores 1.47.

Over the past few years, there have been many reports of widespread repression of civil protests in Iran, an example of which is the November 2019 protests, where, according to a Reuters report, 1,500 protesters were shot and killed by security forces.

On the other hand, in a "top secret" document that Radio Farda published on February 12 from a meeting at the Sarallah headquarters, Mohammadi, from the IRGC's Social Affairs Department, who was present at the meeting, said: "A survey has been conducted in society that shows that the situation in society is in a state of sub-cutaneous explosion."

He added: "Social discontent has increased by about 300 percent over the past year," and the protests in Iran have focused on "inflation, legal arrears, social unrest, and water."

The decline of democracy indicators in the world

The Economist Intelligence Unit report says: 45.7 percent of the world's population lives in systems with some level of democracy, while in 2020 this figure was 49.4 percent; an issue that shows that the state of democracy in the world has regressed and the democracy index has witnessed the largest decline since 2010.

The growing support for authoritarian and totalitarian regimes coupled with the spread of the coronavirus is one of the factors behind the decline in the global democracy index.

Even among European countries like Spain and the UK, the democracy index has fallen. Only 6.4 percent of the world's population lives in fully democratic systems. Norway, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, and Denmark have the best democracies in the world, and a total of 21 countries in the world have democratic systems.

More than a third of the world's population is dominated by totalitarian regimes, and the rest live in hybrid regimes.

The report adds that despite economic progress and wealth, China has not made any progress in terms of democracy and is classified as an authoritarian country and has even regressed.

Over the past few years, there have been many reports of increased social surveillance, crackdowns on civil and political activists, dissidents, and minorities such as the Muslim Uyghur Turks in China.

Source: Radio Farda