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Bangladesh has slipped two places to 75th in the latest global democracy index and is classified as a 'hybrid regime' among countries worldwide.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) published the Democracy Index 2023, where Bangladesh sees its score at a 5-year low.
The EIU’s Democracy Index ranked a total of 165 independent states and two territories.
Scored on a 0-10 scale, the Democracy Index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties.
Based on its scores on a range of indicators within these categories, each country is classified as one of four types of regime: 'full democracy', 'flawed democracy', 'hybrid regime', or 'authoritarian regime'.
Bangladesh bagged an overall score of 5.87 out of 10 and is classified as a 'hybrid regime'.
Most of the regression occurred among the non-democracies classified as 'hybrid regimes' and 'authoritarian regimes'.
According to the EIU, countries classified as "hybrid regimes" are those whose elections have substantial irregularities that often prevent them from being both free and fair, and government pressure on opposition parties and candidates may be common.
Bangladesh ranked third in South Asia, taking India as the first and Afghanistan at the bottom in the region.
According to the report, only 7.8 per cent reside in a 'full democracy' and more than one-third of the world’s population live under authoritarian rule (39.4 per cent).
The world’s democracies seem powerless to prevent wars from breaking out around the globe and less adept at managing conflict at home, said the report.
The Nordic countries - Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Finland and Denmark - topped the rankings.
The global average index score fell to 5.23, which is the lowest since the inception of the index in 2006, according to the EIU democracy index.
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