PANDEMIC WORSENED DEMOCRACY DEFICIT IN 80 COUNTRIES: THINK-TANK

The pandemic has been terrible not only for the human body but also for the body politic, The Economist argued in its weekly newsletter, citing Freedom House, a think-tank in Washington, which counted 80 countries where the quality of democracy and respect for human rights have deteriorated since the pandemic began.

Only one country has improved, claimed Sarah Repucci and Amy Slipowitz of Freedom House. Global freedom has been declining since just before the financial crisis of 2007-08, by their reckoning. COVID-19 has accelerated this pre-existing trend in several ways. The disease poses a grave and fast-moving threat to every nation. Governments have, quite reasonably, assumed emergency powers to counter it. But such powers can be abused. Governments have selectively banned protests on the grounds that they might spread the virus, silenced critics and scapegoated minorities. They have used emergency measures to harass dissidents. And they have taken advantage of a general atmosphere of alarm. With everyone’s attention on covid-19, autocrats and would-be autocrats in many countries can do all sorts of bad things, safe in the knowledge that the rest of the world will barely notice, let alone to object.

In India, strict lockdowns were imposed amid the biggest campaign of civil resistance and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government singled out neighborhoods which had held protests. “Modi has racked up colossal approval ratings this year, even as he presides over a double catastrophe of mass death and economic slump. So has Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, despite the largest reported caseload in South-East Asia. Mr Duterte’s poll numbers may be colored by fear; he has had thousands of people, supposedly criminal suspects, killed without trial, a campaign that appears to have intensified during the pandemic,” The Economist reported. While some Filipinos admire his grim style, many have doubted his 91% approval rating, with respondents in the tracking survey tagged as Duterte trolls in the Visayas and Davao City, Duterte’s hometown. Moreover, the New People’s Army (NPA), which opposes his regime, reported killing nearly 300 soldiers, policemen and members of paramilitary units since August 2020.

“Admiration for Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s militaristic president, is as high as ever, despite over 5 million COVID-19 cases and more than 150,000 deaths. This is partly because he has handed out emergency aid to 67m hard-up Brazilians, but his macho posturing also appeals to many voters. He caught COVID-19 and recovered, crediting his background as an athlete,” The Economist reported. Bolsonaro claims Brazil never had a military dictatorship and accuses environmentalists of starting wildfires in the Amazon region.