Azerbaijan is a consolidated authoritarian regime, the democratic situation becoming only worse in the country, says the Nations in Transit 2017 report published by Freedom House.

Azerbaijan got the score of 7 (the worst indicator) for national democratic governance, electoral process, civil society, independent media, judicial framework and independence, as well as corruption.

It scored 6.5 only for local democratic governance. Consequently, the democracy score of Azerbaijan made up 6.93 as compared to 6.86 last year.

According to the report, corruption rating declined over the course of several years, this having to do with the devaluation in 2016 and the Panama Papers leaks.

It is also stressed that “In the face of Azerbaijan’s mounting economic woes, President Ilham Aliyev successfully consolidated his authoritarian rule through a controversial constitutional referendum in September 2016.” Apart from this, the persecution of civil society, including human rights defenders, opposition members, lawyers, NGO leaders, journalists, religious leaders, and their families, continued throughout 2016, space for independent media continuing to contract.