Political rights in Moldova saw decline in 2008, Freedom House

In 2008 the situation of political rights in Moldova worsened compared with the previous year, while the state of civil liberties remained unchanged, according to the US-based Freedom House's annually updated flagship publication “Freedom in the World 2009”, released yesterday. The survey places Moldova in the category of “partly free” countries, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to the survey, Moldova suffered the decline in political rights due to increased official corruption. In particular, Moldova’s political rights rating declined from 3 to 4 due to signs of serious political bias in budget allocations, new restrictions on access to information, and the apparent politicization of anticorruption investigations. The civil liberties rating remained unchanged at 4. At the same time, Transnistria, as a disputed territory, has been assigned the score 6 in both categories, which makes the region “not free”. The survey found that in non-Baltic countries of the former Soviet Union continued their decade-long decline, now ranking below Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East on several survey indicators. Russia and Georgia, which went to war over South Ossetia, were among the region's notable declines, as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova. Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe remains strong, despite setbacks in Bulgaria and Macedonia. Moldova's neighboring Romania and Ukraine were placed in the category of 'free' countries. Published annually since 1972, the Freedom in the World assigns freedom scores to 193 countries and 16 related and disputed territories. The survey seeks to assess the current state of political rights and civil liberties in these countries on a scale of 1-7, where 1 represents 'most free' and 7 'least free'.