East Timor: Seventh most robust democracy in Asia, Australasia – report

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East Timor: Seventh most robust democracy in Asia, Australasia – report

1:02 CAT | 11 Feb 2022

File photo: Lusa

East Timor is the seventh most robust democracy in Asia and Australasia and the 43rd strongest in the world, with the electoral process being the highest-ranked category, the Democracy Index 2021 wrote on Friday.

Despite having moved up one place in the world ranking, East Timor is still part of the group of countries considered “imperfect democracies”, according to this annual index from The Economist Intelligence Unit, of the British magazine The Economist, which measures the levels of democracy in 167 countries and territories.

In last year’s ranking, and as in 2020, East Timor appeared, at the regional level, behind Australia, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand and Taiwan.

Overall, it moved up one place, to 43rd, concerning the 2020 index, although the ‘score’ remained the same, at 7.06 out of 10.

East Timor’s best score was obtained in the category of electoral process and pluralism, where it achieved 9.58, followed by civil liberties (7.35), political culture (6.88), government functioning (5.56) and political participation (5.56).

Historically, the country’s best record was obtained between 2013 and 2016, with 7.24.

When it comes to the Asia and Australasia region, the index noted a drop in the average from 5.62 to 5.46, in a decline for the second consecutive year and the lowest value since 2006, when the study began to be published.

“Over the past five years, the region has lost almost all gains in the global score, reaching a high of 5.74 in 2015 and 2016,” noted the study, which pointed to the effects of the pandemic as the cause, but mainly “the events in Afghanistan and Myanmar that had by far the greatest negative impact on the region’s average score in 2021.”

Of the 28 countries in the region, ten improved scores, ten were unchanged, and eight recorded falls in assessment.

The Asia and Australia region has five “full democracies”, Australia, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand and Taiwan, but includes some of the least democratic countries in the world, including the bottom three in the index: Afghanistan, North Korea and Myanmar.

There are also four regimes considered authoritarian in the region: Cambodia, China, Laos, and Vietnam.

The countries with the most significant drops were Myanmar, which fell 31 places in the ranking, from 3.04 in 2020 to 1.02 in 2021, followed by Afghanistan, dropping 28 places, from 2.85 in 2020 to 0.32 in 2021.

Nepal also suffered a major regression: the score fell from 5.22 in 2020 to 4.41 and dropped nine places.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index is constructed based on assessment in five categories: electoral process and pluralism, government functioning, political participation, political culture and civil liberties.

The index paints a picture of the current state of democracy in 165 independent states and two territories, rating 60 indicators on a scale of zero to 10.

Based on the total score, countries are classified as one of four regime types: full democracy (scores greater than eight), imperfect democracy (greater than six), hybrid regime (greater than four) and authoritarian regime (scores less than or equal to four).

Source: Lusa