PETALING JAYA: Malaysian democracy has improved on the international scale, jumping nine spots up from 52nd to 43rd as reported in the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) democracy index.
According to the report, Malaysia made further democratic progress in 2019 owing to its progressive path towards institutional reforms, beginning with the scrapping of its “fake news” in August 2018, after introducing it in March of the same year.
“Its score improved and the country rose nine places in the global ranking as campaigning opportunities for all parties, including the opposition, improved, especially in the realm of social media,“ said the report which was released today.
Additionally, our regional ranking got us the 7th spot among countries in Asia and Australasia, behind New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Timor-Leste.
Malaysia also scored very well under electoral process and pluralism, attaining 9.17; faired a moderate score of 7.86 in government efficacy; but barely made 7 in three areas - political participation (6.67), political culture (6.25) and civil liberties (5.88).
The Democracy Index is compiled by a UK-based company and evaluates 167 countries.
