Armenia among semi-consolidated authoritarian states in Freedom House Democracy Index

ArmInfo. The democracy index, according to the non-governmental organization Freedom House in Armenia, is 3 units. Moreover, Armenia is in the category of semi- consolidated authoritarian states. This is stated in a report entitled " Nations in Transit 2020: Dropping the Democratic Facade", which was published by Freedom House today.

Together with Armenia, Georgia (3.25 points), Moldova (3.11 points) and Ukraine (3.39 points) are among the transitional regimes.  Meanwhile, according to the Freedom House rating, the seven consolidated authoritarian regimes among countries in transition include Russia (1.39), Turkmenistan (1), Azerbaijan (1.14), Uzbekistan (1.14), Tajikistan (1.18), Kazakhstan ( 1.32) and Belarus (1.39).

The best thing about democracy and human rights among the 29 countries included in the ranking is in Estonia (6.09 units), which the authors of the report classify as consolidated democracies. The same category includes Lithuania (5.64 units), Latvia (5.79 units) and Slovenia (5.93 units).

A report on the development of democracy and civil liberties in the transition countries - European and Asian states of the former socialist bloc - notes that current trends are such that more and more leaders of world states have recently refused to even pretend to play according to the rules of democracy.

As the democratic consensus of the post-Cold War order has given way to great- power competition and the pursuit of self-interest, these politicians have stopped hiding behind a facade of nominal compliance. They are openly attacking democratic institutions and attempting to do away with any remaining checks on their power.

In the region stretching from Central Europe to Central Asia, this shift has accelerated assaults on judicial independence, threats against civil society and the media, the manipulation of electoral frameworks, and the hollowing out of parliaments, which no longer fulfill their role as centers of political debate and oversight of the executive. Antidemocratic leaders in the region continue to pay lip service to the skeletal, majoritarian element of democracy-claiming that they act according to the will of the people-but they do so only to justify their concentration of power and escalating violations of political rights and civil liberties.

<Despite their leaders' choices, citizens' yearning for democracy remains strong. Major transformations driven by public demands for better governance have been under way in Armenia and Ukraine, with the former earning the largest two-year improvement ever recorded in Nations in Transit. Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy will now face the difficult challenge of managing expectations, maintaining trust, and restructuring corrupt systems without contravening democratic norms.>

In the authoritarian half of the Nations in Transit region, incumbent rulers used their well-established control over state institutions to further fortify their own positions. Perhaps nothing demonstrated this instrumentalization better than the constitutional "reforms" announced by Russian president Vladimir Putin in early 2020, which will ultimately allow him to retain his post beyond the two-term maximum. The timing of the overhaul, very much by design, took everyone by surprise, signaling that Putin is firmly in command and remains one step ahead of friend and foe alike when it comes to succession and the survival of his regime. More importantly, the changes demonstrated a contempt for the rule of law and the basic principles of constitutional government." <In the rest of Eurasia and Central Asia, authoritarians have been similarly preoccupied with the future. Perhaps hoping to avoid scenarios like the Velvet Revolution in Armenia and the arrest of former president Almazbek Atambayev in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev oversaw a half-hearted political transition, resigning in March 2019 only to take back much of his power from the designated successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, later in the year.  The presidents of Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan have been elevating their own relatives to positions of power and responsibility, preparing the ground for a dynastic transition.>