O UR ANNUAL “country of the year” award goes not to the most influential nation, nor to the richest, nor to the one with the tastiest food (sorry, Japan). It celebrates progress. Which country has improved the most in the past 12 months?

It is a tricky choice. A stellar performance in one year is no guarantee of future success. Last year’s pick, France, is now racked by riots. Myanmar, our winner in 2015, has regressed bloodily. Nonetheless, we must choose. For 2018, some of our staff facetiously suggested Britain, for giving the world a useful warning: that even a rich, peaceful and apparently stable country can absent-mindedly set fire to its constitutional arrangements without any serious plan for replacing them. Others suggested Ireland, for resisting a form of Brexit that would undermine Irish peace; and also for settling its vexed abortion debate democratically. Two Latin American states merit a mention. Whereas Brazil and Mexico are plunging into populism, Ecuador and Peru are strengthening institutions, such as the judiciary, that can curb a headstrong leader. South Africa has ditched a president, Jacob Zuma, who presided over the plunder of the state. His replacement, Cyril Ramaphosa, has appointed honest, competent folk to stop the looting.

In the end, the choice came down to three countries. In Malaysia voters fired a prime minister who could not adequately explain why there was $700m in his bank account. Despite Najib Razak’s glaring imperfections, his sacking was a surprise. Malaysia’s ruling party had dominated politics since the 1950s and gerrymandered furiously to keep it that way. Yet the opposition triumphed at an election, and Malaysians enjoyed the delicious spectacle of police removing big boxes of cash, jewellery and designer handbags from their former leader’s home. Malaysia might have made a worthy winner, except that the new prime minister, the nonagenarian Mahathir Mohamad, seems reluctant either to relax the country’s divisive racial preferences or to hand over power as agreed to his more liberal partner, Anwar Ibrahim, a former political prisoner.