Uzbekistan climbed 1 place to rank 149th out of 167 in the Democracy Index 2022, the Economist Intelligence Units Democracy Index 2023 said in its released report on Thursday.

According to the index, Uzbekistan had a cumulative score of 2.12 out of 10 for 2023.

For the five categories, the country scored:

• quality of electoral process and pluralism - 0.08 points;
• functioning of government - 1.86 points;
• political participation - 2.78 points;
• political culture - 5 points;
• civil liberties - 0.88 points.

Uzbekistan had the same scores in 2022, 2021 and 2020.

The report said that "authoritarian" Central Asia has "made little progress" over the past year.

Tajikistan is placed in 155th place, and Turkmenistan is closer to the end of the ranking - in 162nd. Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan both climbed seven positions to 109th and 120th places, respectively.

“Political reform processes in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have yileded few results in 2023. During the year, referendums on constitutional reform were held, as well as parliamentary and presidential elections. Several new parties have emerged in Kazakhstan, whose independence from the government is questionable; elections remain unfree and unfair,” the report says.

According to the researchers, Uzbekistan “lags behind” Kazakhstan in many areas of democracy, including political participation, and both countries are “firmly entrenched in the authoritarian camp.”

Commenting on the situation in Kyrgyzstan, experts noted that the tandem of President Sadyr Japarov and head of the State Committee for National Security Kamchybek Tashiev sought to consolidate power at the expense of the country’s “hard-won democratic achievements.” “They invested in the state security apparatus, replaced a once-strong parliamentary system with a hierarchical presidential system, and suppressed dissent,” the report emphasizes.

The top five countries in the index were occupied by the likes of Norway, New Zealand, Iceland, Sweden and Finland.

They bottom five are Syria, CAR, DPRK, Myanmar and Afghanistan.