What does Hong Kong have in common with Namibia and Paraguay? The answer is that they share the same ranking on the Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest Democracy Index, which was released on Wednesday.
Hong Kong was ranked 71 on the index and had an overall score of 6.31 out of 10, and retains its status as one of 57 “flawed democracies”.
Hong Kong’s ranking was down three places in 2017 compared to the previous year. The grade marks a five-year low for the city, and comes amid what critics say is increasing interference by Beijing in the semi-autonomous territory’s affairs .
The city was also ranked behind Coconuts HK’s’ sister city of Singapore (69), Indonesia (68), Philippines (51), Malaysia (59), but beat Thailand 107, which had a score of 107.
The index also looked at freedom of speech, a category which saw Hong Kong’s media freedom ranked 71st, giving it a status of “largely unfree”.
On the media freedom rankings however, Hong Kong did better than Singapore (132, unfree), Thailand (121, unfree), Malaysia (109, unfree). The city did tie with Indonesia but were beaten by the Philippines who were ranked at 49 with a “partly free” status.
“Media freedom around the world has fallen to its lowest level since we began producing the Democracy Index in 2006, and restrictions on freedom of speech have become commonplace even in developed democracies,” the report said.
The Economist’s democracy index rates countries in five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation, and political culture.
The most recent report comes days after one of Hong Kong’s best-known democracy activist Agnes Chow was barred from running as a candidate for upcoming by-elections to the city’s legislature.
The move was the latest in what critics see as a series of examples of interference by Beijing in Hong Kong’s affairs.
The city is supposed to be guaranteed a high degree of autonomy under the ‘one country, two systems’ model, designed to protect freedoms, such as an independent judiciary and free speech that are not extended to citizens on the mainland.
In January, Washington-based human rights NGO Freedom House gave Hong Kong a low freedom rating citing “Beijing’s encroachment on freedoms”.
