Representation

Developments in Representation were mixed, the main trend being attempts to weaken checks and balances. In Argentina, President Milei has repeatedly used ‘urgency and necessity’ decrees to further his agenda on subjects such as migration that require congressional approval. The legislature has taken some assertive steps, such the Senate’s rejection of Supreme Court nominees that President Milei attempted to appoint by decree. In the United States, President Trump has issued a large number of far-reaching executive orders that significantly undermine separation of powers. The administration has cancelled the disbursement of Congressionally approved funds, ordering the closure of the Department of Education and dismantling USAID.

The consolidation of single-party rule is another recurring phenomenon. In El Salvador, where the ruling party and allies hold 57 out of 60 seats, Congress abolished public financing for political parties, making the political system inaccessible to opposition and new political parties. In Nicaragua, members of the opposition are now banned from running for the newly created offices of ‘co-presidency’. 

Rights

Restrictions on mobility and migrants’ rights were the most notable in the beginning of 2025. In Panama, the government tightened rules for asylum seekers and migrants, shuttering shelters in the Darien region and expediting deportations. Central and South American countries have felt the effects of new US policy on migration, which includes the deportation of undocumented migrants to third countries. This policy (along with recent legislation) has significantly narrowed prospects for family reunification and pathways to legal status, eroded migrants’ due process rights and access to justice by resorting to summary deportations, defiance of court orders, and revoking visas and residence permits for political reasons. 

A pushback to diversity, equity and inclusion policies (DEI) has diminished gender equality and social group protections in the United States, including for members of the LGBTQIA+ community, resulting in the rejection of trans identity. LGBTQIA+ rights have also backtracked in Trinidad and Tobago, where an appeals court overturned a landmark ruling for gay rights. In Argentina, gender affirming care for children and adolescents has been restricted.

Some progress in the Rights category has come in the form of strengthened self-government for Indigenous peoples in Colombia, and a National Care Policy establishing a framework to address inequality experienced by those who perform unpaid caregiving tasks.

Rule of Law

Judicial Independence was a recurring theme for Rule of Law. In Costa Rica, President Rodrigo Chaves joined a protest against the judiciary, due to ongoing inquiries into allegations of corruption-related crimes. In Nicaragua, some judicial orders will require national police approval before they are enforced, subordinating judges’ authority. In the United States, federal judges will no longer be able to issue nation-wide injunctions to halt the enforcement of policies that are challenged before the courts, decreasing their power.

Political violence has had a negative impact on Personal Integrity and Security in the United States, where state lawmakers were shot, seemingly for their political affiliations, and in Colombia, where a senator was killed. 

Absence of Corruption performance was also notable. A Brazilian justice confirmed the conviction of former president Collor de Mello, while a Peruvian court found former president Ollanta Humala guilty of money and asset laundering. Another development is the adoption of an anti-corruption law in El Salvador, although its effectiveness has been questioned due to insufficient transparency safeguards.

Participation 

Increased scrutiny of civil society organizations was the main trend in Participation. With negative impacts to civic space, legislation restricting the funds and work of CSOs was introduced in Peru and El Salvador. Amendments in Peru to an international cooperation law will tighten government scrutiny over their work. The Salvadoran Foreign Agents Law will require CSOs that receive foreign funding to pay a 30 per cent tax. 

Elections

National elections were held in six countries: Ecuador (February), Trinidad and Tobago (April), Canada (April), Suriname (May), Venezuela (May), and  Mexico (June). Ecuador and Canada saw their leaders re-elected, with the latter country registering its highest turnout in decades. In Suriname, parliament elected its first woman president. In Trinidad and Tobago, parliamentary elections resulted in an opposition leadership victory. Elections for Venezuela’s National Assembly lacked independent oversight. Mexico held its first judicial elections.

Representation

Over the past six months, several elections have reflected deepening political polarization. In Romania and Poland, presidential races were decided by narrow margins between candidates offering profoundly different visions. In Poland, the leading candidates widely diverged on matters including abortion rights and the rule of law, with policy debates laced with concerns about the politicization of public institutions. Romania’s election followed a turbulent period that included an annulled election, court challenges, and widespread dis- and misinformation that strained perceptions of institutional legitimacy and electoral integrity. In Albania, international observers noted that the parliamentary election was characterized by polarizing discourse, particularly between the two main political parties. 

Elsewhere, there were concerns about the fairness of political competition. In Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Republika Srpska entity, the suspension of public funding for political parties and the arrest of the former leader of the largest opposition party signal continuing erosion of political pluralism. In Georgia, the ruling party intensified pressure on its opponents by expanding the legal grounds for party bans and detaining opposition leaders.

On a positive note, several countries have introduced measures to broaden participation and improve ballot access. Cyprus introduced major reforms, including lowering the voting age to 17, introducing automatic voter registration, and enhancing accessibility measures for people with disabilities. Moldova’s parliament adopted a law expanding access to postal voting for citizens abroad.

Rights

The category of Rights was the most impacted during this period. Several events touching upon migration raised complex questions about citizenship and equality. Ukraine introduced a dual citizenship law that will allow Ukrainians to gain an additional citizenship without losing their Ukrainian nationality, and simplifies the process for Ukrainians born abroad to gain citizenship. However, in France the Constitutional Council upheld legislation restricting access to French nationality for children born to foreign parents in the overseas department of Mayotte. In Russia, the government launched a registry of migrants deemed to be living in the country illegally, restricting their ability to relocate, own property, and access financial services. The registry is estimated to cover one in nine foreign citizens, though reports indicate many have been included by mistake or without cause. 

Alongside these developments, challenges to freedom of expression and association have intensified. In Azerbaijan, authorities cracked down on protesters, detaining over 100 people and reportedly torturing those involved and those who posted comments critical of police on social media. In Hungary, Parliament approved a ban on Pride events and introduced fines for publicly supporting LGBTQIA+ events and rights. In Russia, police raided the country’s largest publishing house as part of an investigation into the alleged dissemination of ‘LGBT propaganda’. 

However, in Poland, the Supreme Court simplified the procedure for legal gender recognition by lifting family litigation requirements. In Lithuania, the Constitutional Court ruled that excluding same-sex couples from the civil code is unconstitutional and required Parliament to adopt legislation regulating the procedure for the registration of civil partnerships. At the same time, UN human rights experts warned that a Supreme Court judgment in the United Kingdom clarifying the interpretation of the Equality Act could justify exclusionary policies.

Rule of Law

Personal Integrity and Security emerged as the most impacted factor of Rule of Law in Europe during this period. Positive developments included stronger protections against gender-based violence. Norway’s Parliament criminalized sex without consent, and stronger protections for victims of domestic violence were introduced in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

Austria, Montenegro and Sweden were shaken by unprecedented mass shootings. A deadly fire in a nightclub in North Macedonia killed at least 59 people and injured over 150, sparking outrage over systemic failures linked to corruption, negligence and impunity. 

The vertical and horizontal division of power within governments has also been contested. Bosnia and Herzegovina faced increasing political instability as the Republika Srpska entity rejected the authority of central government institutions following the RS president’s conviction for undermining central authority. In Montenegro, the Parliament’s termination of a Constitutional Court judge sparked a political crisis and exposed weaknesses in the separation of powers.

Participation

Protests have demonstrated remarkable citizen engagement. In Serbia, student-led protests against corruption following the deadly canopy collapse at Novi Sad train station became some of the largest in the country’s history. In Slovakia, large crowds called for Prime Minister Robert Fico’s resignation, criticizing his actions as undermining political institutions. Nationwide demonstrations in Spain, organized by tenants’ unions, neighbourhood associations and other civil society organizations, denounced a lack of affordable housing. In Türkiye, the March arrest of opposition politician Ekrem Imamoğlu sparked the largest protests the country had seen in over a decade.

However, foreign agent laws have constrained civil society. In Georgia, Parliament passed legislation requiring organizations or individuals deemed to be acting at the direction of a foreign power (including through receiving a grant) to register with the government. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the National Assembly of Republika Srpska approved legislation requiring NGOs receiving foreign funding to register and comply with strict reporting. Slovakia’s Parliament passed legislation introducing stricter requirements for NGOs to disclose their sources of funding. In Azerbaijan, leaders of civil society organizations faced charges of illegally implementing foreign-funded grant projects.

Representation

Over the past six months, the region saw a mix of advances and declines in Representation that have impacted governance, electoral integrity and the freedom of political parties. While some countries strengthened their electoral systems – such as the Philippines implementing online voting for overseas citizens and Australia passing significant campaign finance reforms – others are grappling with increasing restrictions on political activities and a centralization of power. 

In Bangladesh, the interim government suspended its former ruling party’s registration under anti-terror laws amid a trial over the 2024 anti-government protests. On a brighter note for Free Political Parties, the Indonesian Constitutional Court lowered the presidential nomination threshold for parties, potentially paving the way for a more pluralistic electoral landscape.

There were also notable declines in Effective Parliament. For instance, in Kyrgyzstan, new legislation further concentrated authority in the presidency, while in Indonesia, the legislature granted itself excessive oversight powers over the executive branch. A similar pattern of legislative overreach in Taiwan triggered a civil society-led recall movement, which could potentially restore the ruling party’s control of the legislature in 2025, or lead to further political gridlock.  

Elections

Six national elections took place in Asia and the Pacific in the first half of 2025: five parliamentary (Singapore, Australia, Philippines, Tajikistan, Vanuatu) and one presidential (South Korea). Voter turnout averaged 83.5 per cent in the 2025 elections, up from an average of 77.9 per cent in the previous elections. Among the parliamentary elections, female representation increased from 24.9 per cent to 27.4 per cent. Australia’s federal election delivered a landslide win to incumbent Anthony Albanese’s Labour Party, as well as gains for women’s representation in parliament and cabinet. South Korea’s snap presidential election resulted in incumbent turnover, with Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party securing victory, following the former president’s abrupt declaration of martial law and consequent impeachment in 2024-2025. 

Rights

The region continued to face significant challenges to Freedom of Expression and the Press during the past six months, a trend which mirrors global declines. High profile attacks and prosecutions of journalists occurred in Indonesia, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and broader legal infringements on these freedoms occurred in Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Pakistan. Developments in Civil Liberties were not uniformly negative – Malaysia eased restrictions on public protests in February, and in May Tajikistan decriminalized ‘likes’ and ‘reposts’ online of material deemed objectionable by the state. 

Conversely, there were several positive developments in Access to Justice. These included the high-profile arrest of former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte on charges of crimes against humanity and New Zealand’s criminalization of wage theft. Papua New Guinea saw in March the first conviction of a ‘glasman’, an individual who makes accusations of sorcery that may result in rape and murder.

Women’s and LGBTQIA+ rights were once again in flux across the region. Australia’s May federal election saw increases in women’s representation in parliament and in the cabinet, in part due to the Labor Party’s gender quota. Earlier in the year, the government also announced a major investment in women’s health, as did Thailand’s in transgender healthcare. New Zealand’s parliament narrowed the scope of the country’s landmark pay equity legislation in May, and in April Vanuatu began discussing a constitutional amendment to recognize only two sexes assigned at birth.

Rule of Law

The region has been the locus of three major Rule of Law processes: Bangladesh’s post-Hasina regulatory and legal reforms, South Korea’s legislative and judicial responses to former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s failed coup, and the return of the military to public life and expansion of executive authority in Indonesia under President Prabowo Subianto. South Korean parliamentarians and the general public acted swiftly to defuse the immediate crisis caused by Yoon’s declaration of martial law in December 2024, and the country’s courts followed suit in the first half of 2025 by removing obstacles to current President Lee Jae-Myung’s candidacy for the presidency and upholding Yoon’s impeachment. In this regard, South Korea’s democracy shows signs of resilience, demonstrating that the legal foundations established over the last four decades will not be easily shaken. In Bangladesh, a series of reform commissions are proposing changes to wide swathes of state institutions, buoyed by demands expressed through popular protests, including reforming the judicial appointment process. Ultimately, it remains crucial to monitor how these so-called democratic turnarounds are sustained amid ongoing reform and legislative efforts. Only then can genuine democratic resilience be established in preventing similar authoritarian threats in the future. 

Participation

This category saw the fewest coded events in the first half of 2025. The Democracy Tracker noted record high turnout in Vanuatu’s January snap election and the Philippines’ midterm elections in May. Human rights lawyers in the latter noted increased pressure on Civil Society through a nearly fourfold increase in ‘terrorism financing’ investigations against civil society organizations and human rights defenders. 

Representation

During the latter half of 2024, the primary trends in Representation were political upheaval and electoral reform in contexts like Bangladesh, Nepal and Indonesia, as well as restricted space for opposition political parties in Thailand and Pakistan. While public pressure and judicial intervention halted controversial electoral law changes in Indonesia that threatened opposition parties, the dissolution of the main opposition Move Forward Party in Thailand reflects a broader trend of lawfare being used to silence dissent. In Pakistan, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party continued to endure legal challenges brought on by the ruling coalition government.  

In Bangladesh, a student-led uprising abruptly ended Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule, paving the way for an interim government overseeing state institution reforms and organizing new elections. Nepal saw its fourth change in the ruling coalition since the 2022 general election, with the new alliance foreshadowing its plans to amend the constitution and electoral system.  

Yet even stable democracies faced turbulence in late 2024, with South Korea’s President briefly declaring martial law, which was swiftly overturned by parliament. 

Elections 

Four national elections took place in Asia and the Pacific in the second half of the election Supercycle year: three parliamentary (Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Japan) and one presidential (Sri Lanka). Voting age population turnout across the parliamentary elections averaged 62.8 per cent, down from an average of 63.9 per cent in the previous elections. Among those three elections, female representation increased from 16.9 to 21.1 per cent. Only in Sri Lanka did elections result in real incumbent turnover, where left-leaning candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake swept both presidential and snap parliamentary polls. Following political funding scandals, Japan’s snap parliamentary election delivered a rebuke to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which lost its majority but retained its position as the largest party in the House of Representatives. 

Rights

Most events in this six-month period concerned Rights. Restrictions on Civil Liberties were marked by the repression of protests in contexts like Pakistan and Bangladesh, which in the latter case led up to Hasina’s departure. In Malaysia and Pakistan, efforts to regulate online content are increasingly being used as tools to restrict Freedom of Expression and control an open Internet. In contrast, Bangladesh took a positive step by deciding to repeal the controversial Cybersecurity Act. 

The region also saw significant progress in accountability and reconciliation efforts; Nepal passed its long-awaited transitional justice law in August, while Thailand took the historic step to end statelessness and grant citizenship to nearly 500,000 people.  

Women’s and LGBTQIA+ rights saw a mix of progress and setbacks. Afghanistan continued its crackdown on women’s autonomy in the public and private sphere, while Vanuatu banned same-sex marriage and announced its plans to draft a national policy banning LGBTQIA+ advocacy as well. To the contrary, Indonesia narrowly expanded abortion rights, New Zealand passed a divorce law protecting domestic abuse victims, and parliamentary elections in Japan and Sri Lanka boosted women’s representation in the legislature.

Rule of law

Events coded as Rule of Law reflected both major political upheavals, primarily in South and Southeast Asia, and contestation over the authority of the judiciary. In Pakistan, the Supreme Court acted to ensure that Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party could take its allotment of reserved parliamentary seats and thus deny the government a supermajority, and later reinstated highly contested anti-corruption laws. In response, the nation’s parliament moved to exert more direct control over the Court, passing legislation allowing it to choose the next Chief Justice. 

Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court was also active in ruling to compel the government to hold much-delayed local elections (despite the Court’s intervention, local elections remain indefinitely delayed as of December 2024). Elsewhere, popular mobilization was necessary to ensure the judiciary and the legislature adhered to the rule of law – in Indonesia, a significant bottom-up movement against changes to the electoral system seen as unduly benefitting the ruling coalition and the family of outgoing President Joko Widodo led the parliament to swiftly backtrack.   

Participation

As with the first half of the year, very few events were coded under Participation in the region. Those that were, however, reflected milestone events in the ability of mass civic participation to alter the course of national politics. In Bangladesh, the uprising which saw the end of Sheikh Hasina’s fifteen year rule spoke to the strength of local civil society and popular resilience despite years of democratic backsliding and police repression. As noted above under Rule of Law, Indonesia’s August nationwide protests showcased the ability of organized civil society and mass protests to prevent a government from straying too far outside of the agreed-upon limits to its discretion. Even in authoritarian Cambodia, simmering dissatisfaction on social media, dispersed local networks, and the Cambodian diaspora pressured the government into reversing an unpopular decades-old regional economic agreement. 

Representation

Attacks on opposition parties remained an important trend in the first half of 2025. In coup-affected Mali and Niger, the increasingly tenuous political transitions to civilian rule were set back further by the dissolution of all political parties. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the party of former President Jospeh Kabila was suspended for its ‘ambiguous’ view of the M23 rebel group, which the government is fighting in the east of the country. Electoral exclusion was another way in which political party freedom was undermined, with a leading opposition party and candidates ruled out of elections in Tanzania and Côte d'Ivoire, respectively. Elsewhere, opposition figures were physically attacked (Burundi and Republic of Congo) and detained and prosecuted (Chad, South Sudan and Tunisia). 

Yet, Effective Parliament has been an area of positive change in Lebanon and Liberia, where the election of a president and speaker, respectively, ended prolonged and damaging parliamentary deadlocks.  

Rights

Armed conflict and insecurity continued to negatively impact Rights performance. Wars in Palestine and Sudan and renewed fighting in the DRC deprived millions of access to basic necessities of life, the material foundation for democracy. Ethnic and sectarian violence in Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic (CAR), Mali, and Syria reflects how insecurity has undermined social cohesion, negatively impacting social group equality. 

Freedom of the press has been another casualty of the armed conflict in the DRC, with the authorities suspending  Al-Jazeera over an interview it conducted with the leader of the M23 and imposing a ban on media coverage of Joseph Kabila and his party.Media freedoms were also curtailed in Senegal, which in April suspended hundreds of outlets in a regulatory crackdown and in Ethiopia and Zambia, where government regulatory powers were significantly extended. 

There were positive developments too in access to justice, with Lebanon, Syria and Zimbabwe all taking steps to address historical injustices. 

Women’s political representation in Namibia improved dramatically in March, when Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, the country’s first woman president, appointed a gender-balanced cabinet and another woman, Lucia Witbooi, as her vice-president. Legal reforms in the Gulf brought advances and declines in gender equality, including the abolition of ‘honour killing’ leniency in Kuwait and new restrictions on the ability of Omani mothers to pass on citizenship to their children. 

Rule of Law

Ongoing tensions between the judicial and executive branches in Israel further undermined judicial independence in the country, as the Minister of Justice refused to acknowledge the authority of the newly appointed President of the Supreme Court and a new law expanded elected officials’ control over judicial appointments. Judicial independence also faced setbacks in Uganda, where a Supreme Court ruling declaring  military trials of civilians unconstitutional was first dismissed by President Yoweri Museveni and then contradicted by legislation reauthorising such trials.

Personal Integrity and Security was another area of negative change, with security agencies in several countries employing coercive tactics against members of key countervailing institutions, including the media (Burundi, Chad and Uganda), opposition parties (Burundi, Chad, Mali and Republic of the Congo) and the legal profession (Cameroon). People continued to be killed in large numbers in the region’s armed conflicts, notably the wars in Palestine and Sudan.

By contrast, there were positive developments in the fight against corruption in the DRC, Mauritius and Senegal, where prosecutions were initiated and (in the case of the DRC) concluded against former government officials. In Lebanon, banking secrecy rules were amended to facilitate investigations into corruption.         

Participation

There were four national elections in Africa and Western Asia between January and June 2025 –one presidential and three legislative, including inaugural, indirect Senate elections in Chad and Togo. The average voter turnout in the direct elections was 68.2 per cent. The 70.1 per cent voter turnout in Gabon’s presidential election, the first since the 2023 coup d’état, was the highest in three decades and marked a significant increase from the previous election (56.6 per cent). 

Beyond elections, there was notable civic engagement through protest in Mali and Zimbabwe, where citizens held historic demonstrations over democracy and governance concerns. Similarly, in Morocco, workers carried out the first general strike in a decade in response to a new law restricting the right to strike.

However, civil society organisations (CSOs) in several countries have faced new restrictions on civic space. In Zimbabwe, this came in the form of an intrusive new regulatory regime, while authorities in Jordan, Libya and Niger banned, suspended or expelled at least one CSO.