Guyana rated “free” in Freedom House report
Kaieteur News
January 22, 2007
Guyana is the only country that has moved up from last year into the category of “free countries” in the Freedom in the World 2007 report released by Freedom House, an independent non-governmental organisation that supports the expansion of freedom in the world.
The report which is based on an index survey of political rights and civil liberties is conducted annually.
The 2007 report released last Thursday, notes that Guyana's political rights rating has improved when compared to last year's when the country was listed as a partly free state. The emergence of the Alliance For Change (AFC), the report noted, has contributed positively to the political climate.
Freedom in the World provides three broad categories for each of the countries and territories included in the index: free, partly free, and not free.
A free country is one where there is broad scope for open political competition, a climate of respect for civil liberties, significant independent civic life, and independent media.
A Partly Free country is one in which there is limited respect for political rights and civil liberties. Partly free states frequently suffer from an environment of corruption, weak rule of law, ethnic and religious strife, and often a setting in which a single political party enjoys dominance despite the façade of limited pluralism.
While a Not Free country is one where basic political rights are absent, and basic civil liberties are widely and systematically denied.
The survey also measures political rights and civil liberties on a scale of one to seven, with one representing the most free and seven the least free rating.
According to the report, Guyana's political rights rating improved from 3 to 2, and status from Partly Free to Free, due to free and fair presidential and legislative elections and the emergence of the new AFC party that helped open the political party system.
The survey findings note that the percentage of countries designated as free has failed to increase for nearly a decade and suggest that these trends may be contributing to a developing “freedom stagnation.”
Major findings also include a setback for freedom in a number of countries in the Asia-Pacific region, a more modest decline in Africa, and an entrenchment of authoritarian rule in the majority of countries of the former Soviet Union.
On a global scale, the state of freedom in 2006 differs little from that of 2005.
The number of countries judged by Freedom in the World as Free in 2006 stood at 90, representing 47 percent of the world's 193 polities with some three billion people—46 percent of the global population. The number of Free countries increased by one since the previous survey for the year 2005.
Several of the countries that showed declines during the year are those already counted among the world's most repressive states which included Burma, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Eritrea, and Iran.
Yet declines were also noted in a number of countries rated Free or Partly Free, but whose democratic institutions remain unformed or fragile, as well as in societies that had previously demonstrated a strong measure of democratic stability.
Such countries included South Africa, Kenya, Taiwan, Philippines, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and Hungary.
Most of the Caribbean nations are listed amongst the free and noted that in Haiti's case, political rights rating improved from 7 to 4, while its civil liberties rating moved from 6 to 5.
Haiti's overall status saw a shift from not free to partly free, mainly because the country held its first elections in more than five years, replacing the interim government of Gerard Latortue with the elected Rene Preval as President and a new Parliament.
The report noted that Trinidad and Tobago's political rights rating improved from 3 to 2 due to the loosening of former Prime Minister Panday's grip on the UNC opposition party as several dissidents split off to form their own party.
Further, the report noted that the twin-island's improved political rights rating was also due to Prime Minister Manning's stronger regional voice and the country's greater independence from Venezuela and deepened ties with the U.S. as a result of its booming gas sector.
The report notes that Brazil is trending downward due to increased political corruption, including the involvement of the governing party in many of the country's most serious corruption scandals.
Freedom House was founded in 1941 by Eleanor Roosevelt, Wendell Willkie, and other Americans concerned with the mounting threats to peace and democracy. Freedom House has been a vigorous proponent of democratic values and a steadfast opponent of dictatorships of the far left and the far right.
Since its founding, Freedom House has vigorously opposed tyranny including dictatorships in Latin America, apartheid in South Africa, and Soviet Communism and domination of Eastern and Central Europe, and religiously-based totalitarian regimes including Sudan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.