Spoiler: The attacks against democracy continue. Today, 7/10 people live in non-democratic countries according to the Democracy Report 2024 by Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). And some of the worst detoriations in democracy, autorizatoin, are happening close to home. The largest declines in democracy last year took place in Eastern European countries. In these countries, Freedom of the Press, Academic Freedom, and other civil rights were attacked. The attacks were made by democratically elected governments. One of these have managed to downgrade the country from being democratic to autocratic. It is of course the Orbán regime. Still, Belarus and muscovy are worse places. There, democracy is rarer than oxygen on Mars.
The autocratization in the world is no news. It has been going on for a while. I have blogged about it here, here, and here. And it continues to be worse as reported also by Freedom House in their 2024 report. Among its findings are
Political rights and civil liberties were diminished in 52 countries, while only 21 countries made improvements. Flawed elections and armed conflict contributed to the decline, endangering freedom and causing severe human suffering.
Increasingly more people live in autocracies
Almost two decades of increased oppression of freedom in the world.
Source: Freedom House. Freedom in the World 2024.
Some places are worse than others. Crimea and other occupied parts of Ukraina have been turned into concentration camps by the fascist in the kremlin.
Human rights’ black holes.
Source: Freedom House. Freedom in the World 2024.
Freedom House’s assessment of the detoriation of demcracy and freedom is shared by V-Dem. They conclude in their 2024 Democracy Report that
The state of democracy experienced by an average person is back to situations characterised the 1980s.
The share of the world’s population living in autocracies is increasing. It has been lower than the “democratic share” since 2009.
The declines are strongest in Eastern Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Central Asia
It is getting worse in every region.
Source: Varieties of Democracy. Democracy report 2024.
Let’s have a look at Eastern Europe since it is close to us. V-Dem define Eastern Europe broadly. It appears to be 23 countries that used to be located east of the Iron Wall until 1989. Some, previously repressed, countries have gained or regained independence since then. Five countries are classifed as autocracies including Ukraine. But that is due to the fascist regime’s genocidal war against Ukraine. As stated in the V-Dem report:
Ukraine’s regression is largely a consequence of Russia’s illegal invasion that put one-third of the territory under harsh authoritarian rule and forced the Ukraine government to impose state of emergency and restrict media freedom and related aspects.
Liberal Democracy in Eastern Europe 2020 vs 2023.
Source: Varieties of Democracy. Note: The index ranges from 0 to 1. The lower the value, the less democratic is the country in question.
According to V-Dem data, the deteriorations in Romania appear to be due to reforms relaxing judicial and legal constraints on the government.
One more fraudulent and illegal election to be held in muscovy where human rights are as rare as oxygen on the planet Mars.
The bottom two countries, in the graph above, are of course Belarus and muscovy. In the latter country, there will be another fraudulent election this year. The little fascist who hates democracy will fake it again this year. Peskov, the chief liar in the kremlin, announced the result already in August last year:
A year ahead of Russia's presidential election, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has told The New York Times that President Vladimir Putin “will be reelected next year with more than 90 percent of the vote.”
The election is illegal in itself. muscovy needed a new constitution for the little fascist in chief to be able to run for president again after he had reached the consitutional limit of periods as president. So they faked a new constitution. And, as Professor Emeritus Anders Fogelklou concludes, the new constitution was made in violation of the old constitution. A mock referendum where voters received money for voting did not make it legal.
And this year’s “election” will probably be even worse than the 2018 presidential election when the OSCE found that:
That during the election, there were continued pressure on critical voices;
Restrictions on fundamental freedoms of assembly, association and expression as well as on candidate restriction which resulted in lack of genuine political competition;
That the media coverage was biased in favour of Putin;
That there were shortcomings related to voter secrecy and transparency of counting; That the legal framework for the election contained restrictions on voter and candidate rights, and limitations on constitutionally guaranteed political rights and fundamental freedoms.
The fraud in the “referendum” was as staggering as the media coverage was biased
Shut up or die in pain!
We should not expect any large demonstrations against the fraudical elections. Politically ordered murders and torture have increased since Yeltsin made the little person “president”.
Increasingingly political murders and torture in muscovy during putin.
Source: Varieties of Democracy. Note: The indicators range from 0 to 4 where 0 indicates that killings and torture are systematically approved and/or used by the regime, and 4 that political killings and torture are completely absent.
The Hungarian road to autocracy
Hungary is among the worst autocraziers in Eastern Europe which I’ve written about here
Hungary’s development under Orbán is summarised in V-Dem’s report
How Orbán has destroyed Hungary
Source: Varieties of Democracy. Democracy report 2024.
A common pattern in countries that turn to autocracies, are attacks on the media, academic freedom, and repressions of the civil society. To make sure that government decisions on restrictions are not overturned, the regimes take control of the judiciary. Once this is under control, the governments begin to manipulate the elections. This pattern is especially visible in the Hungarian developments
The Road to Autocracy in Hungary.
Source: Varieties of Democracy. Democracy report 2024. Note: The indicators range from 0 to 4. The lower the value, the worse the situation for democracy.
Watch Slovakia
A kremlin-leaning person is now prime minister in Slovakia. Fico has not only voiced pro-kremlin lies about Ukraine, but is also showing autocratic tendencies at home. As in other countries where the governments attack democracy, he is planning to take control of the media. The government has proposed a reform which abolishes the independence of the public radio and television company, RTVS. This has raised concerns also outside of Slovakia:
EBU Director General Noel Curran said: “This appears to be a thinly veiled attempt to turn the Slovak public service broadcaster into state-controlled media.
“That would be a dangerous step backwards for democracy and for freedom of expression. Independent, objective public service media serves as the cornerstone of a healthy society, providing citizens with diverse perspectives and holding those in power to account.
This is alarming. The independence of the judiciary in Slovakia is also considered as weak as assessed in the EU Commission’s Rule of Law report for Slovakia:
No progress yet on ensuring that the members of the Judicial Council are subject to sufficient guarantees of independence as regards their dismissal, taking into account European standards on independence of Judicial Councils.
No progress on ensuring that sufficient safeguards are in place and duly observed when subjecting judges to criminal liability for the crime of “abuse of law” as regards their judicial decisions.
The road to autocracy is being paved.
What does the future hold?
More autocracy and less democracy, it seems. This also means a less prosperous world because autocracies are bad. They are not only bad in terms of human rights, they are also bad in terms of prosperity for people outside of their own “ranks. Here’s an old post where I show that autocracies are bad in terms of prosperity now and in the future.