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Georgia Takes 104th Place According to the Democracy Index

December 26, 2006

kazitaze_1.jpgMagazine “The Economist” published a democracy index of the countries in the world. The index was calculated on the basis of five criteria: elections and pluralism, functioning of the government, political activities, political culture and civil freedom. They used a ten-point system to value the indexes. Georgia took 104th place out of total 167 countries.

Out of five aforementioned indexes, Georgia received the lowest points, 1.9, in political activity. It had the best score in elections and pluralism – 7.92. As for the rest of the three indexes, Georgia received a 33.3 in political activity, a 5.99 in political culture, and a 6.47 in civil freedom.

Georgia’s index is lower than such countries as Moldova, Indonesia, Palestine, Malaysia and Russia (only two points’ difference). Russia had the lowest points, 3.21, in Political Activity like Georgia. The highest score was given to Russia for elections – 7 points. Armenia is 110th place, Iraq is 112th, Azerbaijan is 129th, and Uzbekistan is 160th. 

Georgian politicians place different value on the Georgia’s rank. Some of them agree with it, and some do not.  A minority hopes that the index will soon improve. Mamuka Katsitadze, representative of "The Rights" party, says that Georgia has the biggest problem in regard to functioning of the government.

Mamuka Katsitadze said that, "It seems that the organization [World Economist] has studied [Georgia’s] issues thoroughly. However, I do not agree with their estimation regarding elections. If they consider election activity in the last elections, then this would suggest, contrary to Georgia’s high score, that such activity was not substantial.

In regard to other scores, the index of the World Economists is not needed to prove that problems still exist in our government. This is all shown by the problems the people have here, particularly their last time problems regarding gas supply. As for the civil freedom, some improvements can be noticed in this sphere; however, the government tries to restrict the activity. I cannot give high points to the political culture. It is difficult for me to speak about the topic because we have bad situation in all these criteria. I would rather grant the first place to the civil freedom and the final places to the electoral process and pluralism. I make the statement because I am well aware the situation in these fields. Everybody will agree with me who knows the topics well."

Pavle Kublashvili, representative of the Parliamentary majority, does not agree with Katsitadze. He said that the functioning of the Georgian government should take the high points. "It is difficult to comment the facts but the results are interesting. The attention should be focused on the political culture and civil freedom. These are the issues which should be improved in the nearest future. I suppose all these figures are not exact. I cannot agree with the topic which deals with the governmental functioning. I cannot understand why we were granted low points in it. I think we should have higher points. We have received good estimations about the election process."

Another representative of the Parliamentary majority, Aleko Shalamberidze, said in his conversation with the human Rights Centre that the results are interesting. "I consider the results acceptable. A little time ago, similar research was published regarding the economical development and we took the 37th place there. It is bad that we occupy so low place in the democracy index. It also shows that we have the worst results in the governmental functioning. However, I think that we can cope with the problem. My hope is relied on the joint reform of the authority. Today, this structure does not have the shape of pyramid, while it is essential. Regarding the issue we collected the experiences and the results of small countries like ours. This model will be quite useful for us. As for the political participation, we should make the population more active. The results of the research are good because we have chance to improve the situation. It would have been worse, if the results were less realistic."

Eka Gulua   

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