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The annual study of Nations in Transit for Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet countries assesses the situation in 29 countries: the Balkans, Central Asia, Central and Eastern Europe.
All the Baltic states are in the top five. Estonia is in first place and Lithuania shares 4-5 with the Czech Republic.
According to Vytis Jurkonis, a political scientist at Freedom House, one of the main and most disturbing findings of this year’s study is that there have never been so few democracies in the entire region since 1995.
According to the analyst, not only the erosion of democracies, such as the astonishing and continuous fall of the Hungarian democracy index, not only elements of the façade of democracy (imitation, entrenched corruption, populist tendencies) but also the strengthening of authoritarian regimes .
“Lithuania, like all the Baltic countries, looks like a certain island of peace and stability,” V. Jurkonis told BNS.
However, according to V. Jurkonis, this peace can be very misleading, because practically all of Central Europe – Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia and the aforementioned Hungary – is registering a greater or lesser fall in the index of democracy.
“Lithuania is the only one where you can see a small but still one step ahead.” But it should not reassure us so much, but rather make us even more committed, because there really is room for improvement, especially in the fight against corruption, because it is the lowest of all and, in a certain sense, the greatest anchor that hinders the possible progress of our democracy, “he said.
Lithuania does not receive much attention in the main investigation report. V. Jurkonis explains this by the fact that in other countries there were more dramatic events, changes of government, changes, massive protests, scandals and they were more pronounced.
“It is understandable that the stability of Lithuania can be seen as stagnant in the eyes of some. Sometimes we even have the impression that we have a type of fetish for various index tables, in which we are supposed to be as high as possible to At all costs. But progress on the boards is not always a sustainable change. Therefore, in this case we should be happy with stability and strive to establish the foundations of democracy, because the trends in the region, unfortunately, show that democracy is not an irreversible process, ”said V. Jurkonis.
According to him, this year’s report on Nations in transit points to the growing influence of authoritarian states (China, Russia and Turkey) in the analyzed region. If in the past the negative influence of the Kremlin (kleptocratic connections, information and cyber attacks, the promotion of so-called traditional values or even the direct impact on elections, etc.) received a lot of attention, this year much attention is paid to the influence from China. Up to ten of the 29 countries analyzed have signed Safe City Agreements with the Chinese company Huawei, and are monitoring debt diplomacy, as well as various influence campaigns.
According to V. Jurkonis, Lithuania’s assessment has changed only slightly, but in a positive direction due to changes in the category of the electoral process.
“Unfortunately, the upcoming parliamentary elections can easily return Lithuania to its previous positions, because the manifestations of populism and political polarization (division) have not disappeared anywhere. The so-called scandal by the judges has not been lost sight of, but the current system of checks and balances or resilience and the efforts of civil society and independent media are improving all similar challenges in one way or another.If necessary, safeguards are in place to show public indifference and prevent state officials and politicians act exactly as they wish, “said the analyst.
In the context of the fight against corruption, the approval of the law on the protection of whistleblowers is welcomed, and attention is also paid to sociological surveys, which show increasing public confidence in state institutions, but there are a lot of work on transparency.
According to V. Jurkonis, the investigative journalism union has a positive influence.
“Five years ago it was only possible to dream of that term, and now we have investigative journalism teams, both LRT and 15 minutes, and RITA, the investigative journalism center” Siena “, was established, there are individual journalists and even a competition investigative journalism. ” said the analyst.
According to V. Jurkonis, this gives a good boost to clean up his yard, and “that work could be even more productive if the registry data were available to a wider circle of journalists.”
“This would make it difficult to hide corrupt politicians and officials and opaque or malicious third-country nationals, and ultimately would help combat the persistence of nepotism in our society,” he said.
According to the political scientist, the power of civil society is often underestimated in Lithuania.
“I will not fail to repeat that, in my opinion, we often tend to underestimate the power of civil society, sometimes simply by formally counting the number of existing (or non-functioning) NGOs, or regretting that we are not repeating the Baltic Way in these days”. I hope that this nostalgia and skepticism has been at least somewhat dissipated by the impressive response of public initiatives, companies and citizens in the context of a pandemic. Yes, these are already examples of 2020, but in previous years there were also quite strong protests by doctors and teachers, the “Blame” or “Last Call” campaign, the environmental movement for health in Punia or, finally, the important financial support from citizens for Freedom. TV “and other civic initiatives,” said V. Jurkonis.
“There are no perfect democracies, and Lithuania is no exception. It contains empty statements and unfounded expectations, and demonstrative actions, public relations actions rather than real actions. Therefore, we would like more political responsibility and concern for the state than the ratings, the ability to cross party lines, the attention of institutions and officials to democracy and human rights more than previous indices or various reports, the ability to listen to and accept the criticism and approach of society, because Lithuania It is a common state for all of us. In a word, in short, it is possible to rejoice, but there is no place for euphoria or relaxation, “he said.
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