The country is categorised as “largely unfree” in the Media Freedom Index.
According to the EIU table, Malaysia is ranked 59th out of 167 countries polled, scoring 6.54 in the democracy index. It is far behind South Korea which is in 20th position, US in 21st, Taiwan 33rd, and South Africa 41st.
Even neighbouring Philippines is ahead – in 51st position.
Less than 5% of the world’s population live in “full democracy”, according to a report on the index which ranked countries based on how functional their political systems are.
Norway stays on top, leading other countries that are categorised as “full democracies”, including Iceland at No 2, followed by Sweden, New Zealand and Denmark rounding up the top five.
The 2017 Democracy Index found that not a single region recorded an improvement in its average score compared with 2016.
The average regional score for North America (Canada and the US) remained the same while all the other six regions experienced a regression, as signified by a decline in their regional average score.
In a reversal of recent trends, Asia and Australasia was the worst-performing region in 2017.
The “star performer” of recent years experienced a decline in its regional average score for the first time since 2010-11, when it also regressed in the aftermath of the global economic and financial crisis.
Around one-third of the world’s population lives under authoritarian rule, with a large share being in China.
According to the 2017 Democracy Index, 76 of the 167 countries covered by the model, or 45.5% of all countries, can be considered to be democracies.
The number of “full democracies” has remained at 19 in 2017, the same as in 2016, when the total declined from 20 in 2015 as the US fell into the “flawed democracy” category.
The score for the US fell to 7.98 in 2016, reflecting a sharp fall in popular confidence in the functioning of public institutions, a trend that predated – and aided – the election of Donald Trump.
Of the remaining 91 countries in the index, 52 are “authoritarian” and 39 are classified as “hybrid regimes”.
The star performer in this year’s Democracy Index, in terms of movement up the rankings, is The Gambia, which was upgraded from an “authoritarian regime” to a “hybrid regime”. It rose rapidly up the rankings from a lowly 143rd to 113th place, after its score improved from 2.91 to 4.06, the biggest improvement of the year.
In 2017, The Gambia witnessed its first ever democratic transfer of power, putting an end to 22 years of rule by Yahya Jammeh, a dictator who suppressed political freedoms, centralised powers within his ethnic group and relied heavily on the military to instil fear in the population.
Indonesia was the worst-performing country in 2017, falling by 20 places in the global rankings from 48th to 68th position, after its score declined from 6.97 to 6.39.
Guyana rose 10 places in the rankings, from 73rd to 63rd position, while India fell 10 places from 32nd to 42nd, after its score deteriorated by 0.58 points.
According to the Media Freedom Index, only 30 countries out of the 167 covered by the Democracy Index – representing 11% of the world’s population – are classified as “fully free”.
Another 40 countries, representing 34.2% of the world’s population, are classified as “partly free”. Some 97 countries in the Media Freedom Index are rated as “unfree” or “largely unfree”.
Malaysia is categorised as “largely unfree”, trailing behind Hong Kong, the Philippines, Indonesia, Nepal and South Korea, among others.
The index shows that more than half of the world’s population does not have access to free media or has partially free media and is prevented from exercising free speech.
The EIU report also found that 2017 was Asia’s year of regression as Asian democracies had a tumultuous year. The region, which had made rapid progress up the rankings in recent years, experienced the biggest decline of all regions between 2016 and the latest assessment for 2017. Scoring 5.63, Asia lagged behind North America (8.56), Western Europe (8.38) and Latin America (6.26).
It also remained the region with the biggest deviation in scores among the countries. Australia and New Zealand remained the only two “full democracies” in the region as a whole. Asia’s two largest emerging democracies, India and Indonesia, suffered significant decline in their scores and dropped down the rankings in the latest assessment.