Unb, Dhaka
Bangladesh ranks 75th among 165 democracies and is grouped in the category of “flawed democracy” in a global survey report released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) on November 24, as hassles hampered a smooth run of the past parliament and continued over the coming elections.
The EIU also put Bangladesh on the “negative list” with a caution that an unclear or disputed election result, to be overseen by the caretaker government, could trigger a political crisis and rollback of democracy.
Its democracy index is based on five categories: Electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation, and political culture.
Bangladesh’s overall score was 6.11, out of maximum of 10 band scores.
“The condition of having free and fair competitive elections, and satisfying related aspects of political freedom, is clearly the basic requirement of all definitions,” the report noted.
According to the report, although half of the world’s countries can be considered to be democracies, the number of “full democracies” is relatively low (only 28). As many as 54 are rated as “flawed democracies”. Of the remaining states, 55 are authoritarian and 30 considered “hybrid regimes”.
According to the EIU ranking, the top ten democracies are Sweden, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, Australia, Canada and Switzerland. In the ranking, the US manages to come in at 17, with the UK following up at 23.
