Armenia named regional leader in EIU's fresh Democracy Index

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenia ranks 89th in the new edition of Democracy Index from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which is two spots above neighboring Georgia (91st) and a whopping 52 spots above Azerbaijan(141st).

Armenia registered an improvement of 0.14 points compared with 2020 to take its total score to 5.49 in 2021. According to the index, both Armenia and Georgia are “hybrid regimes”, while Azerbaijan is an "authoritarian regime".

"A snap parliamentary election held in July 2021 gave the prime minister, Nikol Pashinian, a strong public mandate following a period of turbulence and discontent. The sweeping victory of Pashinian and his Civil Contract party brought a degree of stability following the 2020 recession and war with Azerbaijan. This allowed the government to continue its democratic reform programme," the report said.

"However, despite the improvement in the score, concerns about Armenia’s democracy remain. The independence of the judiciary is still in question and the opposition is marginalised."

The annual survey rates the state of democracy across 167 countries on the basis of five measures—electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties.