Balkan countries experienced democratic setbacks in 2016 because of corruption, political interference in the justice system and uncompetitive elections, said a Freedom House report.
Most Balkan countries experienced setbacks in their progress to democracy last year amid the re-emergence of populist authoritarianism in the region, according to Freedom House’s 2017 Nations in Transit report.
The report said that populism was a wider trend and that 2016 brought the second-biggest decline in democracy in the Freedom House survey’s history, almost as large as the drop following the 2008 global financial crisis.
The ‘democracy score’ assigned to Serbia by Freedom House in 2016 was at its lowest level since 2005.
“While improvements were visible in some areas related to European Union (EU) accession, they were offset by negative developments in electoral process, democratic governance, and media freedom,” the report said.
The report also mentioned the Belgrade Waterfront demolition incident where the rule of law was effectively suspended to allow private property to be knocked down to make way for a government-backed real-estate development project.
Serbia’s electoral process revealed an obvious “unleveling of the electoral playing field among contestants in favour of the ruling parties”, it said.
The Balkan bright spots in the survey were Romania and Kosovo. According to the report, Kosovo made modest gains due to gradual structural reforms, and the nature of its democracy improved from ‘semi-consolidated authoritarian regime’ to ‘transitional/hybrid regime’.
Source: Balkan Insight