Society

Freedom House classifies Armenia as “semi-authoritarian regime”

Armenia has been classified as a semi-authoritarian regime in the Nations in Transit 2018 report released by the Freedom House.

According to the report, the year 2017 was relatively stable for democratic and foreign affairs, as Armenia’s government continued to consolidate structural and constitutional changes introduced in recent years.

Armenia’s ongoing transition from a semipresidential to a parliamentary republic dominated the political arena, which featured the first national elections to take place under a new constitutional and electoral system.

It notes that the year featured a lower level of violence compared to 2016, which saw a major spike in fighting across the contact line between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh; serious clashes between protesters and police; and an internal security crisis sparked by an armed takeover of a police station in Yerevan by a fringe opposition group.

Russia and Azerbaijan have been classified as consolidated authoritarian regimes, while Georgia is described as transitional government or hybrid regime.

In 2018, Nations in Transit registered the most score declines in the project’s 23-year history: 19 of the 29 countries had declines in their overall Democracy Scores. For the second year in a row, there are more Consolidated Authoritarian Regimes than Consolidated Democracies.

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