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Article: REPORT CARD ON FREEDOM GIVES MANY NATIONS AN `F'.(Local)(Column)
- Article from:
- Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
- Article date:
- December 29, 1998
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Rocky Mountain News. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Dialog LLC by Gale Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Holger Jensen
Contrary to some doomsayers, the economic turmoil that struck many parts of the world in 1998 did not hurt democracy but actually helped it.
One example: President Suharto might still be around if Indonesia had not gone into a tailspin.
Freedom House, the New York-based think tank that issues an annual report card on the state of the world, lists a record 88 countries as being ``free'' - seven more than last year - and 117 countries, or 61 percent of the world's total, as being electoral democracies.
Which all goes to show that not all democracies are necessarily ``free.''
Some are among the 53 nations ...