Morocco is the only hybrid regime in North Africa, while Tunisia is the only democratic regime in the region, says the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance NGO in its annual report.
The report named Algeria, Egypt, Libya, South Sudan, and Sudan as authoritarian regimes.
The Stockholm-based organization makes its annual assessment, the Global State of Democracy 2021, using 50 years of democratic indicators. It places about 160 countries into three categories: democracies, including “backsliding” democracies; “hybrid” governments; and authoritarian regimes.
The Middle East and North Africa region are some of the least democratic regions in the world. Of the 21 countries analyzed for the report, only 4 are deemed to be democratic.
Lebanon and Iraq were classified as weak democracies, while Israel and Tunisia are mid-range performing democracies.
At the other end of the scale, 14 of the countries in the region are authoritarian. Many are marked by a lack of fundamental rights, repression of free expression, and flawed elections—if any, added the report.
The Covid-19 pandemic has reinforced the erosion in democratic principles and the deepening authoritarianism that has accompanied a decade of economic, social, and political turmoil in the region, finds the report.
The democratic decline was marked in a range of countries, including Algeria, Bahrain, and Sudan. Other countries continued to struggle with conflict and its aftermath, including Libya, Syria, and Yemen.
The report finds that journalists continue to be arrested, jailed, and sometimes killed in the line of duty—mostly in authoritarian and hybrid regimes (Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Morocco, Somalia, and Uganda).
Globally, the report said more than one in four people live in a “backsliding” democracy, while two-thirds of the world live in either a “backsliding” democracy, “hybrid” or authoritarian regimes.
The United States has been added to an annual list of “backsliding” democracies for the first time, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance NGO has said, pointing to a “visible deterioration” that began in 2019.
For the first time, the report coded the US, this year, as backsliding democracy, pointing to a “visible deterioration” that began in 2019, including the storming of capital, former president Trump’s questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election’s results, and the American voting laws that negatively affect minorities.
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