Democratic institutions continued to weaken in 2020

SENEGAL HAS long been considered one of Africa's most stable democracies. The west African state has had three peaceful transitions of power since independence, including one in 1980 when Léopold Sédar Senghor became the first modern African leader to hand over power voluntarily. But the country’s reputation as a model of democracy in the region is in peril. Violent protests erupted in Dakar last week after Ousmane Sonko, a leading opposition figure, was arrested for rape. Mr Sonko and his supporters say the charges are part of a plot orchestrated by Macky Sall, Senegal’s president, to end the career of a political rival. At least eight people have been killed amid the unrest.

Senegal’s flirtation with authoritarianism is part of a global trend, according to Freedom House’s “Freedom in the World” report, an annual assessment of the state of democracy worldwide. For its latest appraisal, the think-tank convened around 165 experts to pore over a questionnaire about political rights and civil liberties in 195 countries and 15 territories. Each country was given a score from 0 to 100 and classified as “free”, “partly free” or “not free”. The results show that the world has suffered its 15th consecutive year of democratic decline. In February an annual survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister company of The Economist, reached a similar conclusion.