Georgia remains “partly free” and non-electoral democracy, according to an annual report by the U.S.-based rights group, Freedom House, released on January 12.

Georgia’s scores in political rights and civil liberties categories – based on which a country’s status of “free”, “partly free” or “not free” is determined – stand at 4 in the Freedom in the World 2010 survey, covering 2009 developments.

The political rights and civil liberties categories contain numerical ratings between 1 and 7 for each country or territory, with 1 representing the most free and 7 the least free.

Georgia’s score in the both categories were downgraded to 4 from 3 in previous reports because of developments of November, 2007, involving state of emergency after breaking up protest rallies. And Georgia was disqualified from the list of electoral democracies in a survey covering 2008, “due to flaws in the presidential and parliamentary election process.”

Freedom House also ranked in its report breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia under the category of “disputed territories.”

Unlike South Ossetia, which is ranked as “not free”, Georgia’s another breakaway region of Abkhazia has been described by the report as “partly free.” The same status was assigned to these regions in the previous report.