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Latin America is full of totalitarian regimes, as revealed by The Economist in a world ranking which shows that Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela are not democratic countries. In addition, the study points out that the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela is more dictatorial than those of Cuba and Nicaragua.
The study evaluated the political conditions of 167 nations and placed the regimes of the four Latin American countries within the classification of authoritarian, with values of authoritarianism far removed from hybrid regimes and troubled democracies.
“Latin America is home to four authoritarian regimes: Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. There is a risk that the list of autocracies in the region will grow, as a number of countries are undergoing a process of democratic backsliding. The most prominent example is El Salvador, which recorded the region’s second sharpest decline in score, after Haiti, in 2022,” the report says.
The region in the report
The report was entitled Frontline Democracy and the Battle for Ukraine. The document also details the impact of drug trafficking and irregular armed organizations on democratic systems.
It also detailed that Ecuador is one of the countries in the region most affected by drug trafficking in 2022. It explains that in November the country experienced a wave of violence by drug gangs protesting against government efforts to reduce violence in overcrowded prisons.
“The region is a global hub for transnational drug cartels, which pose a significant threat to democracy. Drug trafficking erodes state capacity by making corruption extremely lucrative and expands the use of violence by non-state actors, which, in turn, leads to an erosion of civil liberties.”
According to the report, only three countries in the region are in the category of complete democracies. These are Uruguay, Costa Rica and Chile, which with scores of 8.91, 8.29 and 8.22 respectively, were among the 24 countries with ratings between 8.0 and 10 points. For its part, the United States is in the section of flawed democracy, 30th place, with 7.85 points, with a decrease of 4 points with respect to 2021.
Williams Perdomo es periodista y escritor, especializado en las fuentes Política y Cultura.