Tirana, March 4 – Democracy and pluralism are under assault around the world, with authoritarianism and illiberal populism remaining key challenges to overcome in Europe and Eurasia, the Freedom in the World 2020 report of US-based international NGO Freedom House has found.
Albania dropped one position on the list, due to political uncertainty making the country “partly free” for the third year in a row. Albania received a score of 67 out of 100 total points, with the main problems in the political rights category, which includes a functional electoral process, the effectiveness of political pluralism and participation, and the functioning of the government.
This is Freedom Houses’ preliminary report.
Albania has the same score as that of the previous year, 40 out of 60 total points, in the category of civil liberties; freedom of expression and belief, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights.
There was no comment from the government on the Freedom House report, while the Democratic Party leader Lulzim Basha took to Twitter to comment it:
“Albanians today live in a country that has major problems with democracy and representation, with corruption at the highest levels, with media censorship, with crime that goes unpunished,” the opposition leader wrote.
Freedom House says consolidated democracies are on the decline as the world for the 14th year in a row has seen worsening political rights and civil liberties. The report says we live in a world without democratic leadership.
Freedom House reaches this conclusion in the annual Freedom of the Year report that analyzes developments in 195 countries and 15 territories. 83 seats or 43 percent rank among the free countries, 63 or 32 percent are partially free and 49 or 25 percent rank as not free. The Western Balkans region brings a mixed picture with improvements for Kosovo and North Macedonia.
Scoring a maximum 100 points, Finland, Norway and Sweden top global ranking of global freedom, followed by Canada, the Netherlands, Ireland and Australia.
