Democracies Under Threat During Pandemic

By N. GUNASEKARAN

Democracy is under severe attack in many countries around the world. Ruling establishments across the world are curtailing the democratic rights of the people, under the pretext of imposition of health emergencies and lockdowns during the pandemic situation. Working people are losing their labor rights and democratic advances, achieved by their united and protracted struggles for so many decades. In many countries, the constitutionally guaranteed rights to protest against injustices are being severely curbed.

The 2020 “Democracy Report,” published by the Sweden-based V-Dem Institute, (Varieties of Democracy), an independent research institute based at the University of Gothenburg illustrated the status of democracies across the world. The data of the 2020 report, namely, “Autocratisation Surges – Resistance Grows,” revealed that democracy was on the decline globally. According to the report, 92 countries comprising 54% of the global population have been autocracies in today’s world.

The report measures average democracy levels by the affected population size, to calculate Liberal Democracy Index (LDI). It is a combination of the quality of elections, suffrage, freedom of expression and the media, freedom of association and civil society, the role of executive, and the rule of law. The report listed the top 10 regressing countries by the change on the LDI over the past 10 years. The leading nations of G20, and many developing countries in all regions of the world are now undergoing “third wave of autocratisation,”affecting the major economies with sizable populations, like India, Brazil, the US and Turkey. If a country advances towards the ideal of democracy, it is democratization and if it moves in reverse direction, it is termed as the process of autocratization. The US registered “a substantial decline in liberal democracy, suffered a fall of 15% from 0.86 in 2008 when the President Obama was elected, to 0.70 in 2019 after three years of rule by the President Trump.” Though India, one of the world’s largest democracies, was listed as an electoral democracy, the report noticed the signs of deterioration. The report indicated that autocratization was taking place in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The status of democracy in Turkey descended into the bottom 20% in the world on the Liberal Democracy Index.

The slide into autocratization has become a worldwide phenomenon, happening in all regions. It listed 31 countries where attacks on freedom of expression and media freedom were on the rise. Academic freedom saw a decline of 13% in autocratizing countries, while the right to peaceful assembly and protest has declined by 14% in such countries.

Another report, released in the beginning of this year, examined a year of democratic setbacks and popular protest. The intelligence unit of The Economist Group detailed the situation in 165 independent states. It pointed out that the declining democratic trends in the US impacted the other countries, who had been its allies for a long period. The report said: “Almost one-half (48.4%) of the world’s population live in a democracy of some sort, although only 5.7% reside in a “full democracy,” down from 8.9% in 2015 as a result of the US being demoted from a “full democracy” to a “flawed democracy” in 2016.” The falling democratic environment in many countries was mainly due to the so called “democracy-promotion” policy of the US, which was pursued for the past decades and aggressively followed from the time of Iraq war.

A watchdog group, “Freedom House” has released a report called “Democracy under Lockdown: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Global Struggle for Freedom.” It held that the global coronavirus pandemic fueled “a crisis for democracy across the world.” Actually, freedom has been contracting for more than a decade and the pandemic has caused further decline in democracy and human rights in 80 nations. The governments were engaging in abuses of power, silencing their critics, and weakening of democratic institutions, undermining the system of accountability, which was badly needed in times of pandemics to protect the public health. For instance, the military regime in Egypt, a US ally, used COVID-19 as an opportunity to silence political activists, lawyers, journalists, and arrested and detained many activists naming them as terrorists.

V-Dem data showed that pro-democracy mass mobilization reached an all-time high in 2019. The people protested and demonstrated in the streets in order to defend civil liberties, the rule of law and fight for clean elections and political freedom. In recent weeks, for instance, Thailand, a Southeast Asian country that has been a long-time military ally and economic partner of the US, has been in the midst of turbulent times. In Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, thousands of anti-government protesters were protesting and frequently holding rallies and keeping up pressure on the government to enact a more democratic constitution, democratic rights for all people, reforms to the monarchy headed by King Maha Vajiralongkorn and resignation of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha. Criticism of the monarchy was unprecedented in Thailand since it was considered as sacrosanct.

The mobilization for democracy in the light of deepening economic downturn, recession, unemployment and loss of livelihoods and incomes during this global pandemic situation is a sign of hope. While more than 40 million people are falling into extreme poverty and some 1.6 billion informal workers are at risk of losing livelihoods and many lacking access to any form of social protection, there is no other way, but to resist.

N. Gunasekaran is a political activist and writer based in Chennai, India.

From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2021

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