But meaningful democracy is much more than that.
In 2022, nearly every country granted its citizens the right to vote.
In 82%, elections were multi-party, meaning that people had more than one option on the ballot.
In others, voters were systematically pressured or intimidated, the timing of elections was violated, or election fraud influenced the results.
Even more concerning, in only 39% of countries were people able to express their political opinions and associate freely.
As a result, just over one-third of countries recently held elections that met all of these democratic criteria and can be considered truly free and fair.
Find out which countries have all democratic criteria and which don't →. »
