The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in its democracy index for 2021 has classed Afghanistan as an authoritarian regime as it has assessed 167 nations in five indexes involving elections, pluralism, civil liberties, political and cultural participation.
Based on the index, all countries of the world have been divided into four main categories including authoritarian regimes. Afghanistan has scored the lowest point in the 2021 index with 0.6 points.
The EIU states that 70 percent of countries recorded a decline in their total democracy score.
In this assessment, Afghanistan's position is better known than all its neighbors except for Pakistan.
The EIU Democracy Index provides a snapshot of the state of world democracy for 165 independent states and two territories.
The Democracy Index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation, and political culture. Based on their scores on 60 indicators within these categories, each country is then itself classified as one of four types of regime: full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime or authoritarian regime.
“Political decisions usually determine our fate instead of the people deciding on their own fate through election,” a member of the Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan Naeem Asghari said.
“We will define a comprehensive election law that will address all needs of the election system of Afghanistan,” Justice Minister Fazel Ahmad Manawi said at a ceremony on Thursday.
TOLOnews reporter visited the Alar village in the Qarabagh district north of Kabul on Thursday where residents said they have less access to basic services by the government and that so far, no road, canalization system and school have been built in their area.
“We are only 100 meters away from the district building but no one has built roads for us so far,” said Massoudullah, a resident in Alar village in Qarabagh district.
The residents also said that due to “bureaucracy” and far distance from government offices, they solve their disputes at local councils in their village.
Enayatullah, a tribal elder in the village, said his case is at the judiciaries “for the last nine years” but it has not been solved so far.
“If you send a letter to government institutions, they will not process even in years,” Enayatullah said. “We do not have a government that can address our problem on time.”