Democracies must heed lessons of Covid-19 pandemic to avoid further backsliding and loss of voter trust

STOCKHOLM— Governments must heed the lessons of two years of a Covid-19 pandemic that has reinforced democratic backsliding across the world in order to avoid further erosion of basic civil liberties and combat rising authoritarianism, while recovery plans need to focus on the hardest hit—women and marginalized communities.These are some of the main findings of the “Global State of Democracy in Focus: Taking stock after two years of Covid-19”, published on Wednesday by International IDEA. Supported by the European Union, International IDEA has tracked governments’ responses to the pandemic over the last two years and how policies affected democracy and human rights.The Report comes at a timely moment. The pandemic surfaced just as authoritarian regimes were growing in numbers, while many democracies were backsliding and adopting authoritarian tactics by restricting free speech and weakening the rule of law. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also increasingly polarized the world into two camps; authoritarian regimes and democracies. “Governments have struggled to find the right balance between individual rights and protecting public health. This was made worse by a pre-existing context of growing mistrust within societies and between the people and their leaders”, says International IDEA Secretary-General Kevin Casas-Zamora.