The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2019, released in January 2020, ranks Mauritius 1st in Africa and 18th worldwide.

In this year’s report, which covers the period 2018-2019, a total of 165 independent states and two territories (covering almost the entire population of the world) were assessed. The Democracy Index made the assessment according to five criteria, namely: electoral process and pluralism; the functioning of government; political participation; political culture; and civil liberties. Based on the scores obtained, each country / territory has been classified into either one of four regime categories: “full democracy", “flawed democracy", “hybrid regime" and “authoritarian regime".

Mauritius attained an overall score of 8.22 points and is qualified as a “Full Democracy". Only 20 countries worldwide belong to this category and Mauritius is the only country in the African region to be classified as a “full democracy". Others in this category include the developed OECD countries of Europe and North America, two Australian countries (New Zealand and Australia) and three Latin American countries (Uruguay, Chile and Costa Rica). It is noted that Mauritius ranks ahead of the France (20th), United States (25th), India (51st) and China (153rd). The three countries at the very top of the Index are Norway (9.87 points), Iceland (9.58) and Sweden (9.39).

In the Sub-Saharan Africa region, Mauritius leads the top 10 list and is followed by Botswana (7.81), by Cabo Verde (7.78 points) South Africa (7.24) and Ghana (6.63), Lesotho (6.54) Namibia (6.43), Senegal (5.81), Madagascar (5.64) and Malawi (5.50).

The full Democracy Index 2019 can be accessed from the EIUs’ website after registration.