The Grand Serail in Beirut. (Credit: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters)
BEIRUT – The Economist Intelligence Unit has changed Lebanon’s classification from a “hybrid regime” to an “authoritarian regime” in its 2021 Democracy Index.
Here’s what we know:
• Lebanon tied with Burkina Faso in 111th place with an overall score of 3.84.
• The Democracy Index ranks each country’s performance from 1 to 10 for 60 indicators grouped into five categories: “electoral process and pluralism,” “functioning of government,” “political participation,” “political culture” and “civil liberties.” Lebanon scored lowest in “functioning of government” category with 1.14 and highest in “political participation” with 6.67.
• Compared to 2020, Lebanon’s overall score fell by 0.32 and its rank dropped by three places. The country’s performance in “functioning of government” fell by 0.36 from 1.50 to 1.14 and in “political culture” by 1.25 from 5.00 to 3.75. Its scores in other categories remained the same.
• In the first published Democracy Index in 2006, Lebanon scored a lofty 5.82, which declined to 4.16 in 2020 only to slip the country into authoritarianism when it fell to this year’s all-time low of 3.84.
• EIU’s analysis of Lebanon’s deteriorated score attributed the country’s 2021 score to the growth of “the power of interest groups related to Lebanon’s sectarian political system” amid a further deteriorating economy and “fuel shortages [that] worsened the cost of living crisis.” The report also indicated that the score factored in “the worsening perceptions of democracy and rising support for military rule.”
• Lebanon slightly outperformed the Middle East and North Africa average score of 3.41, which now includes 17 states classified as authoritarian while still underperforming the global average of 5.28.
• The “authoritarian regime” classification is reserved for countries where “political pluralism is absent or heavily circumscribed,” elections are not “free and fair,” there is “disregard for abuses and infringements of civil liberties” and “no independent judiciary” and “pervasive censorship,” including media that is “typically state-owned or controlled by groups connected to the ruling regime” and criticism of the government is repressed.
• “Hybrid regimes” in comparison have “substantial irregularities” preventing elections from being “free and fair” including potentially common “government pressure on opposition parties and candidates.” Other facets of “hybrid regimes” include “corruption [that] tends to be widespread”, “rule of law [that] is weak,” “harassment and pressure on journalists” and a “judiciary [that] is not independent.”