REGIONAL FINDINGS

Sudanese demonstrators gather outside a court in Omdurman on December 30, 2019, during the trial of intelligence agents implicated in a detained protester's death in custody. Editorial Credit: Marwan Ali/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock.

AMERICAS:

Mass protests, governance crises, and migration restrictions

The Americas experienced a series of mass protests in 2019, many of which featured violent clashes between protesters and security forces, contributing to a regional pattern in which countries that suffered declines in their freedom scores outnumbered those with improvements. However, some of the protest movements also prompted authorities to address underlying grievances.

In addition to the demonstrations in Bolivia, where Evo Morales was forced from power after seeking a fourth presidential term in a deeply flawed election, strikes in Colombia against the administration of President Iván Duque were met by some police abuse, while a hike in Santiago’s mass transit fares sparked widespread protests and a broader critique of the political system in Chile. The Chilean unrest resulted in at least 29 deaths and thousands of injuries, but in response to protesters’ demands, the government agreed to hold a plebiscite on a new constitution in April 2020. Some concessions were also granted in Ecuador, where austerity measures were reversed following protests that led to seven deaths and injured more than a thousand people.

Acute political and governance crises also affected the region during the year, leading two countries to decline in the Freedom in the World indicator pertaining to representative rule. In Peru, President Martín Vizcarra took the unusual step of dissolving the opposition-controlled Congress after it obstructed his anticorruption efforts. The Congress then attempted to “suspend” Vizcarra, but he remained in control and scheduled legislative elections for January 2020. An impasse between the president and parliament in Haiti left that country without a prime minister for most of the year, and local and legislative elections were postponed indefinitely. Meanwhile, antigovernment protests drew a violent police response, leaving more than 40 people dead.

Venezuela, which experienced another year of deterioration in its scores, remained in a political, economic, and humanitarian purgatory as Juan Guaidó, the interim president named by the opposition-controlled National Assembly, struggled to dislodge Nicolás Maduro, who claimed reelection in a fraudulent 2018 vote. Brutal repression of dissent by Maduro’s regime and the allied administration of Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega has encouraged millions of people to flee abroad, contributing to the region’s larger migration crisis. Nicaragua’s multiyear score decline also deepened.

Restrictive migration policies continued to threaten the basic rights of those seeking refuge outside their home countries. Among other problematic initiatives, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras agreed to deals with Washington that would oblige asylum seekers traveling north to apply for and be denied protection in those countries before filing asylum claims in the United States; those who fail to do so risk being sent back to the countries through which they passed, despite the poor security and human rights conditions there. The three Central American states each suffered score declines for the year, though the specific reasons varied.

ASIA-PACIFIC:

Authoritarians flout fundamental rights of minorities, government critics

Political rights and civil liberties declined overall in Asia, as authoritarian rulers showed their disdain for democratic values through practices ranging from fabricated criminal cases against opposition leaders to mass persecution of religious and ethnic minorities.

In several countries, repressive governments rounded on their perceived enemies after securing new terms through elections. Legislative elections in the Philippines, which experienced a two-point decline on Freedom House’s 100-point scale, solidified majorities for allies of President Rodrigo Duterte, who has overseen a campaign of extrajudicial killings. Just weeks after the voting, prosecutors launched sedition cases against an array of critical politicians, clergymen, and civil society activists. Soon after Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the brother of Sri Lanka’s former authoritarian ruler, was elected president himself, there were reports of a crackdown on journalists and law enforcement officials who had investigated the Rajapaksa family for alleged corruption and human rights violations. While Sri Lanka’s overall score remained unchanged, its corruption score worsened. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s discriminatory moves against the political rights of Muslims during the year followed the BJP’s general election victories in the spring, contributing to a four-point decline.

Thailand held its first elections since a military junta took control in 2014, enabling its return to Partly Free status, but opposition parties’ relatively strong showing even in a fundamentally unfair electoral system prompted further repression by authorities. For example, the state filed spurious charges against key opposition leaders later in the year, and prodemocracy activists faced physical attacks.

Conditions in other countries deteriorated in advance of elections due in 2020. Myanmar was downgraded to Not Free as armed conflicts between the military and ethnic rebel groups intensified. Members of the Rohingya minority who remained in the country after years of persecution and mass expulsions continued to face the risk of genocide, according to UN investigators. Singapore passed a “fake news” law that was quickly invoked to silence the opposition and other government critics, resulting in a score decline for freedom of expression.

Meanwhile, autocratic states with no competitive elections found new ways to oppress their citizens and consequently suffered declines in their scores. As China assailed the rights of its Muslim minorities, the sultanate of Brunei activated a new penal code derived from Islamic law that prescribed the death penalty for crimes such as sex outside of marriage.

EURASIA:

Closed balloting in autocracies offset by reform hopes elsewhere

Entrenched strongmen across Eurasia, long one of the worst-performing regions in Freedom in the World, used various types of stage-managed elections in 2019 to extend the life of their regimes.

In Russia, the ruling United Russia party won all of the year’s gubernatorial elections, largely by ensuring that viable opposition candidates were not allowed to participate. Even in the Moscow city council elections, which featured a successful strategic-voting campaign organized by dissident leader Aleksey Navalny, the votes lost by United Russia largely went to Kremlin-approved alternatives. Parliamentary elections in Belarus and Uzbekistan also shut out any genuine opposition, leaving legislatures entirely in the hands of progovernment groups.

Longtime president Nursultan Nazarbayev transferred power to a hand-picked successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, through a rigged election in Kazakhstan, and the authorities used arrests and beatings to break up mass protests against the move.

Despite the grim picture overall, some positive signs were evident in several of the region’s Partly Free environments. Newly elected leaders who came to power on promises of systemic reform—Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and Prime Minister Maia Sandu of Moldova—took initial steps to uproot the kleptocratic forces that have long stymied their countries’ democratic aspirations. Although Moldova’s reforms stalled when Sandu’s coalition government collapsed in November after just five months in power, corrupt former power-broker Vladimir Plahotniuc remained a fugitive after that government’s formation prompted him to flee abroad to avoid criminal charges.

The political opening in Armenia that began with Pashinyan’s long-shot rise to the premiership in 2018 had a positive effect on the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh during 2019. There was an increase in competition and civil society activity surrounding local elections in September, and the stage was set for further changes in the 2020 elections for Nagorno-Karabakh’s president and parliament. Unfortunately, the Eurasia region’s other breakaway territories, which are all occupied by Russian troops, remained locked in a pattern of stagnation or decline in political rights and civil liberties.

EUROPE:

Illiberal populists defend or gain power, threatening democratic norms

The principles of liberal democracy in Europe, historically the best-performing region in Freedom in the World, have been under serious pressure in recent years.

Illiberal populist leaders and parties in Central Europe maintained their assault on independent institutions during the year. In the Czech Republic, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s replacement of the justice minister with a close ally raised concerns that he was attempting to block criminal charges for his alleged misuse of European Union funds, prompting the country’s largest protests since 1989. Poland’s legislative elections laid bare the extent to which the ruling Law and Justice party had politically captured the state media, whose taxpayer-funded broadcasts leading up to the voting amounted to partisan propaganda. Although it lost control of the Senate, the less powerful upper house of Poland’s parliament, Law and Justice retained its lower-house majority and redoubled its efforts to purge the judiciary at year’s end.

In Montenegro and Serbia, independent journalists, opposition figures, and other perceived foes of the government faced ongoing harassment, intimidation, and sometimes violence. Public frustration with the entrenched ruling parties boiled over into large protests in both countries, but they failed to yield any meaningful change.

Far-right parties made electoral gains in Estonia, where the Conservative People’s Party entered government for the first time, and in Spain, where Vox capitalized on gridlock that left the country without a governing majority for most of the year.

In several cases, however, elections produced at least the possibility of improvements for liberal democracy. Voters in Turkey ousted the ruling Justice and Development Party from municipal governments in Ankara and Istanbul, even if President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s power was still unchecked at the national level. To the north, Latvia’s new government committed itself to tackling corruption and oligarchic influence, and balloting in Kosovo lofted the opposition nationalist Vetëvendosje party into office, where it has an opportunity to change the country’s culture of corruption. North Macedonia held a competitive presidential election, helping to repair the antidemocratic legacy of former prime minister Nikola Gruevski. And Romania amended its electoral code, expanding access to the franchise ahead of its presidential vote. The country ended the year with a new government after the corruption-plagued Social Democratic Party, whose agenda had endangered the rule of law, was defeated in a parliamentary confidence motion.

MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA:

Elections are rare, rigged, or indefinitely postponed

Tunisia held competitive and credible elections for the presidency and parliament in September and October 2019, confirming its status as the only Free country in the region other than Israel. It was also the only country to earn a score improvement for the year. Tunisians continued to face serious challenges, including an unreformed security sector and the constant threat of terrorist attacks. A state of emergency has been in place continuously since 2015. Nevertheless, Tunisia’s democracy, born during the 2011 Arab Spring, has proven resilient so far, and its political achievements are especially impressive in comparison with the rest of the Middle East and North Africa, where credible elections remain exceedingly rare.

In Qatar, for example, the 2003 constitution promised that two-thirds of the national advisory council—the country’s closest thing to a parliament—would be elected every four years, but the emir has repeatedly postponed the voting, most recently in 2019, contributing to a low political rights rating. The elections are currently not expected before 2021, though like Saudi Arabia, which has one of the worst scores in all of Freedom in the World, Qatar has held circumscribed balloting for municipal advisory bodies. The UAE, another Persian Gulf state ruled by hereditary monarchs, has held nonpartisan elections for half of its Federal National Council since 2006, but the franchise in 2019 was still limited to a fraction of the citizen population, which in turn accounts for only a tenth of the country’s residents. Turnout remained low even among those with the power to vote.

Elections and governance in Iraq and Lebanon are distorted by sectarian militias, corrupt patronage networks, and interference from foreign powers—entrenched problems that stoked the frustration of protesters during 2019. In Morocco, Jordan, and Kuwait, all Partly Free countries, powerful monarchies continue to assert their dominance over elected parliaments and control cabinet appointments. In October, for instance, Morocco’s king engineered a cabinet shuffle that replaced many elected politicians with nonpartisan technocrats, leading to a one-point decline.

In the Palestinian territories, both consistently ranked Not Free, the unresolved schism between the Islamist group Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority led by the Fatah faction in the West Bank has contributed to legal confusion and repeated postponement of elections. No presidential election has been held since 2005, and the last parliamentary balloting was in 2006. Authorities loyal to Fatah and Hamas continued to suppress dissent in their respective territories during 2019, underscoring their lack of democratic legitimacy.

Egypt has held multiple elections since President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi seized power in 2013, but they have all been tightly controlled, rubber-stamp affairs, with no genuine opposition campaigning permitted. In April 2019, the regime orchestrated a constitutional referendum that extended the president’s current term to 2024, after which he can seek another six years in office. The plebiscite, which suffered from low turnout despite alleged vote-buying and intimidation meant to ensure a strong endorsement, also further weakened judicial independence and strengthened the military’s role in civilian governance, causing a one-point decline in the indicator for representative rule.

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA:

Setbacks for democracies, authoritarian states in transition

Democratic backsliding in West Africa accelerated in 2019. Benin, previously one of the continent’s top performers, held legislative elections from which all opposition parties were effectively excluded. The flawed process, which featured an internet shutdown and violence against antigovernment protesters, contributed to a remarkable 13-point decline. Senegal’s presidential election went forward without two of the country’s most prominent opposition figures, who were barred from running due to criminal cases that were widely viewed as politically motivated, leading to a one-point decline.

Opposition parties were able to compete in Nigeria’s general elections, but the balloting was marred by major procedural irregularities and a rise in violence and intimidation, driving the country’s scores down in all three election-related indicators. The manipulation of online content during the electoral period and the government’s increasing hostility toward the media threatened free expression throughout the year. In Guinea, which was set to hold a presidential election in 2020, protesters turned out in an attempt to block President Alpha Condé’s drive to change the constitution and run for a third term. The country suffered a three-point decline as legislative elections were postponed and civic groups faced harassment for opposing the third-term effort.

East and Southern Africa presented more of a mixed picture. In Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Uganda, the space for independent civic and political activity continued to shrink as incumbent leaders worked to silence dissent. All three countries experienced declines in their scores. However, there was notable progress in some authoritarian states as they proceeded with tenuous reforms. While it remains to be seen whether the military in Sudan will abide by its power-sharing agreement with prodemocracy protest leaders and cede control to civilian leadership ahead of elections in 2022, the Sudanese people have already experienced initial improvements in political rights and civil liberties.

Ethiopia also made notable strides under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, reforming restrictive laws and allowing previously banned political groups to operate openly. Still, internal conflict threatened the durability of these gains, and the 2020 elections will be an important test. Angola’s early progress after a change in leadership in late 2017 was fairly dramatic, but the momentum slowed in 2019, and the results of President João Lourenço’s reform agenda, with its emphasis on battling corruption, have yet to be fully realized.