Morocco moves forward in the Democracy Index ranking

The Kingdom of Morocco has managed to climb four spots to 96th in the world in the recently released Democracy Index, a report compiled by UK-based company The Economist Intelligence Unit that intends to measure the state of democracy in 167 countries.

According to the report released on Wednesday, January 22, Morocco scored 5.10 out of 10 points, bettering its score in comparison with 2018 (4.99). The survey recalls that Morocco had successfully improved its score compared to 2006. The country’s score moved up from 3.9 out of 10 recorded 12 years ago to 4.07 in 2012 and 4.77 in 2016.

The report puts Morocco among the countries that have a «hybrid regime», a category dedicated to regimes that score greater than 4, and less than or equal to 6. To the Democracy Index, «hybrid regimes» refer to nations where «governments’ pressure on opposition parties and candidates may be common, corruption tends to be widespread, and the rule of law is weak».

Morocco ranks 3rd in the MENA region

Morocco's score is calculated on the basis of four indicators, which show that the country seems to be stagnating. Thus, the electoral process and pluralism in the Kingdom obtained a score of 5.25 out of 10, as in 2018, while civil liberties scored 4.41 points.

For the functioning of the government index, Morocco scores 4.64 out of 10 and 5.63 out of 10 for political culture. As for political participation, the country’s score went from 5.00 to 5.56.

Compared to other countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, Morocco maintains its third place, behind Israel (7.79 out of 10) and Tunisia, which ranks 53rd in the world.

Algeria moved to the 113th place despite the Hirak movement that shook its streets in February 2019. Mauritania gained three spots, ranking 116th, while Libya dropped to 156th in the world ranking.

According to the authors of the report, «democratic deterioration in the MENA region was more modest but followed a trend of steady regression that started in 2012, when the gains of the Arab Spring began to be reversed».