Freedom House: Albania, Kosovo partially free

Freedom House released its annual 2021 World Freedom Report, under which the gap between declines and improvements in freedom level deepened. According to the report, Albania has dropped a point below, while Kosovo has two points. Northern Macedonia was one of the success stories with three points of improvement from the year before.

According to Freedom House, the Balkans are among the regions that have been declining, but it has also noted some progress. Albania and Kosovo continue to remain partially free, and have suffered a drop of one point and two points, respectively.

Albania, down from 67 points last year, has 66 points this year with a drop in the category of collection rights and organisation, in terms of two events.

“We saw decline in freedom of gathering, due to violence between protesters and security forces in May, during the collapse of the National Theatre building. Another reason for concern was when police killed a citizen who had violated the police watch. These contributed to the decline in the collection freedom category”, said the co-author of the Amy Slipowitz report.

Kosovo suffered a two-point drop of 56 to 54, attributed to the declines in the electoral process categories and political pluralism.

This has to do with the approval of Prime Minister Hoti's government by a majority by a margin vote of an MP who had been sentenced”, says Amy Slipowitz, coauthor of the report and research manager at Freedom House.

The disorder of this process resulted in a decline.

“was also the decline in the category for the opposition because the old political guard orchestrated the fall of the government of Vetevendosje party Albin Kurti”, Slipowitz said.

Despite the region's decline, Montenegro and Northern Macedonia have scored growth, even at 3 points more than last year, Northern Macedonia is one of the countries cited for significant growth in the report.

The reformist government of Northern Macedonia was re-elected and its institutions have largely recovered from the damage caused by the former prime minister, Nikola Gruevski”, the report said.

2020 was a year when the coronary pandemic prevailed in the world not only as a health crisis, and the United States suffered a significant decline in the level of democracy. Fredoom House says the consequences feel worldwide.

When democratic countries suffer decline, or show weakness, this gives authoritarian actors something to mention and space to claim democracy is a sub-x1> system, says the report's co-author, Sarah Repufici, vice president for studies and analysis at Freedom House.

Freedom in the United States dropped by three points, and in the last decade, 11 points have dropped -- a deep decline that already puts the country closer to weak institutions like Romania and Panama.

The biggest damage said about American democracy, Repufici says, was President Trump's efforts to overturn American voters' will and his groundless claims of election fraud.

Citing as an example the events of January 6th, experts from Freedom House that have measured the world's level of freedom for decades say propagandists in the world use this very argument against democratic countries.

President Biden's “Administration should make the consolidation of democracy a priority, we must repair long-term weaknesses and not focus on short-term resolution”, Repufici says.

However, researchers note that the fact that the judicial system functioned demonstrated the strength of democracy.

Freedom House cites China's role as one of the main concerns in both hiding the size of pandemic and efforts to expand the world's influence.

Despite falling to the level of freedom, Freedom House concludes that democracy in many parts of the world continued to show its resilience, as protests in countries like Malawi, Myanmar and Russia have shown. /voa/