Malaysia ranked 43rd last year from 52nd in 2018, the Economist Intelligence Unit said in its 2019 report.

A total of 167 countries were surveyed. Thailand registered the biggest improvement as it jumped 38 places to 68th spot and moved out of the “hybrid regime” category into the “flawed democracy” category.

Malaysia scored 7.16 points from a maximum of 10, its best score ever. Malaysia scored good marks for electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government and political participation, and political culture.

The United States was demoted from a “full democracy” to a “flawed democracy” in 2016 and the report quoted Larry Diamond, a democracy scholar, as saying the world had been going through a “democracy recession” with a trend towards authoritarianism in the developing world.

“By contrast, Malaysia, which scrapped its ‘fake news’ law in August 2018 (having introduced it in March of that year), made further democratic gains in 2019,” the report said. “Campaigning opportunities for all parties, including the opposition, improved, especially in the realm of social media,” the report said.

Of the 167 countries covered by the index, 22 were considered full democracies, flawed democracies 54, hybrid regimes 37 and authoritarian regimes 54.

Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand and Ireland are ranked among the top and in the full democracy category while Syria, the Central African Republic, Congo and North Korea are marked as authoritarian regimes and trail at the bottom of the rankings.