Photo: Freedom House

Georgia “struggled to build on fragile democratic gains” in 2016, but it still remains among “partly free” countries, according to an annual report by the U.S.-based rights watchdog Freedom House.

Freedom in the World 2017, a country-by-country report on global political rights and civil liberties in 195 countries and 14 territories, covers developments of 2016.

Each country or territory is given a status “free”, “partly free” or “not free” based on points in political rights and civil liberties categories on a scale from 1 to 7 with 1 representing the most free and 7 the least free.

Georgia’s rating in both political rights and civil liberties categories remained unchanged at 3 and the country remains among “electoral democracies”; Freedom House removed Georgia from this category in its 2009 report for parliamentary and snap presidential elections in 2008, but assigned “electoral democracy” status back to Georgia in its 2013 report after the October, 2012 parliamentary elections.

Freedom House stated that Eurasia, which Georgia belongs to in the report, “was divided between a more European-oriented fringe and a core of rigid autocracies.”

“While Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova struggled to build on fragile democratic gains, several leaders to the east took steps to shore up their power in the face of economic and political uncertainty,” the Freedom House said.

The report by Freedom House ranks breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia under the category of “related and disputed territories.”

Abkhazia and South Ossetia are ranked as “partly free” and “not free”, respectively. Like in previous reports, in political rights category Abkhazia has 4 points and in civil liberties – 5; South Ossetia has 7 points in political rights category and 6 in civil liberties.