(UTV|The Economist Group in the UK) – Sri Lanka has been rated as 69th most democratic country in the world by The Economist Group in the UK.
Sri Lanka’s has been ranked 69th out of 167 countries in the latest Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy index.
According to the latest report, Sri Lanka’s regional rank is 13 which takes into account countries in Asia and Australasia.
Sri Lanka’s democracy as measured by the Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index has been marginally improved to 6.27 in 2019 against 6.19 reported in the previous year.
However, the Sri Lanka’s democracy index reported an overall score of 6.48 in 2016 and 2017.
In 2019, Sri Lanka also scored 7.00 from the subcategory of the electoral process and pluralism while scoring 6.07 from the functioning of government.
Sri Lanka scored 5.56 from the subcategory of political participation while scoring 6.25 from political culture.
Meanwhile, in 2019 the average global score fell from 5.48 in 2018 to 5.44, the worst result since the Democracy Index began in 2006.
The decline in the global democracy score was driven by sharp regressions in the average regional scores in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Norway topped the index ahead of Iceland and Sweden while North Korea is rated the least democratic country in the world based on the Economist Intelligence Unit index.
The EIU Democracy Index provides a snapshot of the state of world democracy for 165 independent states and two territories.
The Democracy Index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture.
Based on their scores on 60 indicators within these categories, each country is then itself classified as one of four types of regime: full democracy; flawed democracy; hybrid regime; and authoritarian regime. (NR)