Protests, rising tensions between political parties, the opposition boycott of local elections and failure to open EU accession negotiations are some of events in 2019 that will have an impact on Albania’s rising risks in 2020 and on living conditions for residents, local business news provider Monitor reported on Tuesday, citing conclusions from the latest index of Fitch Solutions, part of credit rating company Fitch Ratings.
The index assessed the short-term political risk of Fitch Solutions (STPRI) and points to more instability in some states in 2020, with the issue of perceptions of governments lacking political legitimacy that pose the risk of unexpected mass protests aimed at to oust the leaders. However, public dissatisfaction with their daily lives, as well as country-specific ethnic tensions, will also pose risks and are part of the index’s assessment.
“A comparison between the results of our Short Term Political Risk Index (STPRI) in January 2019 and December 2019 shows that more countries saw deterioration (71) than improvements (44) of the 200 countries and territories we cover,” Fitch Solutions said.
By comparison, in 2018, 72 countries saw deteriorations, while 39 saw improvements. However, when looking at countries where STPRI changed by five or more percentage points, the picture in 2019 was somewhat more dramatic than 2018, with 10 seeing such deteriorations (compared to five in 2018), while six saw improvements (compared to four of last year). The biggest changes (both downward and upside down) in 2019 were in markets like Africa that appeared most prominently in the midst of the downturn, while countries seeing improvements were geographically mixed, the report said.
Overall, the issue of perceived lack of legitimacy has been the driver of some of the sharpest declines in the index study. This means that the government in power or the political system is no longer seen as legitimate by the public because of the perception of electoral manipulation or other forms of corruption or manipulation. Indeed, the sharp decline in any country’s STPRI in 2019 was seen in Sudan. The second sharpest fall has been seen in Hong Kong. Other countries that saw significant declines in their STPRIs on “legitimacy” issues include Albania, Algeria and Bolivia.
