By Alec Hogg
It’s been a supercharged start to 2023 for investment markets, with the JSE delivering more in January than in the whole of 2019, 2020, and 2020. Nasdaq, too, has been on a tear; although its double-digit rise in January pales compared with Bitcoin’s 41% bounce. But some context in the five-year graph below. Images courtesy of Kevin Lings, chief economist at Stanlib.
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There are two ways of looking at South Africa’s showing in the latest Democracy Index by The Economist’s Intelligence Unit. On the one hand, it’s disappointing to witness another decline to 45th of the 165 independent states listed. On the other, at least among the half of humanity who live in a functional democracy.
In the last ten years, however, SA’s score has dropped from 7.9, fractionally below the index level which qualifies as a ‘Full Democracy”. We’re now down to 7.05 and solidly among the world’s “Flawed Democracies.” More disappointing, SA has dropped to only fourth of the 44th African countries surveyed, now well behind Mauritius (21st and the only ‘full democracy’), Botswana (32nd), and even Cape Verde (35th).
The index is based on the electoral process; functioning of government; political participation; political culture; and civil liberties. SA’s 7.05 average is dragged down by a score of just 5.0 on Political Participation, illustrating the challenge facing opposition parties as the 2024 Election approaches.
“Overall,” the EIU notes, “the story is one of stagnation with the global average score unchanged….this is a dismal result given that in 2022 the world started to move on from the pandemic-related impression of individual liberties – 92 of the countries either stagnated or declined in terms of their index.”
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* Six months after serving as mercenaries on the Ukraine front line, Russian prisoners including rapists and murderers have been freed and are back home. Click here.
* PANDA chairman Nick Hudson, who will be facilitating the Covid-19 workshop at BNC#5, takes a sceptical look at the ability of scientists to enhance natural viruses in labs. Click here.
