Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) produces the world’s largest dataset on democracy with over 31 million data points for 202 countries. According to that organization, Mauritius is one of the countries where democracy has seen a continuous and accelerating decline over the past 10 years. In 2024, our country ranks 88th out of 160 countries, with a liberal democracy index of 0.36. In terms of electoral democracy, Mauritius ranks 95th, 0.045 points lower than the previous period and is thus classified as an “autonomous” autocratic country.
V-DEM deplores the introduction of several regulations that restrict the work of broadcasting companies and journalists. It also criticizes an increase in government’s media censorship efforts since 2019/20. The series of actions undermining democracy led to the declassification of the Mauritian state to an electoral autocracy in 2023.
But measuring democracy comes with many challenges. People do not always agree on what characteristics define a democracy. These characteristics — such as whether an election was free and fair — are difficult to define and assess. The judgment of experts is to some degree subjective. They may disagree about a specific characteristic or how something as complex as a political system can be reduced into a single measure.
