December 17, 2021 11:14 am
Each year the Economist chooses a “country of the year”. The award does not go to the largest, richest or happiest country, but to the one that we believe has improved the most in 2021. Past winners include Uzbekistan (for abolishing slavery), Colombia ( for having found internal peace) and Tunisia (for having introduced democracy).
2021 was a difficult year. Covid-19 continued to spread suffering as ingenious vaccines were unevenly distributed and new variants such as omicron emerged. In many countries, civil liberties and democratic norms have been undermined. The main Russian opposition leader was jailed. In the United States, Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. The civil war engulfed Ethiopia and Burma. Yet in the midst of all this sadness, some countries have turned on a light.
In little Samoa, the courts neutralized a constitutional crisis, ousting the party it had ruled for 33 years (and a prime minister who claimed he was chosen by God) and appointing a reformist, the first woman to lead the country, to head the government. . Moldova, one of the poorest countries in Europe, has long been a center of Russian money laundering, but at the end of 2020 the population elected anti-corruption champion Maia Sandu as president. In 2021 Sandu’s party gained control of parliament. Zambia has restored democracy: a year ago the country was corrupt and on the verge of collapse, and in August the government tried to rig the elections, but the population elected the liberal businessman Hakainde Hichilema by such a large margin that the attempt at fraud has failed. Hichilema struck a deal with the IMF and started fighting corruption.
Lithuania also defended democratic values. If the Baltic country were a Chinese city, it would barely be in the top forty by population. Yet small Lithuania has challenged the Beijing government by allowing Taiwan to open a representative office in the capital Vilnius. The Lithuanian government has also urged the population to get rid of smartphones made in China after discovering the presence of a software for censorship that could be activated without the user being aware of it.
In 2019, Italians were poorer than they were in 2000. But this year things have changed.
Lithuania has also challenged other authoritarian regimes. It welcomed dissidents from neighboring Russia and Belarus, including the woman who most likely won the most recent elections in Belarus, Svetlana Tichanovskaja. The despot who rigged the elections, Aleksandr Lukashenko, tried to take revenge by forcing crowds of refugees to cross the Lithuanian border. Vilnius responded decisively, but with much more humanity than Poland, provoked by Belarus in the same way. China is determined to subdue Lithuania, and a Chinese newspaper has made fun of the country for its size by comparing it with great originality to “a mouse, perhaps a flea”. Democracy champions around the world admire the courage of Lithuanians, yet Lithuania is not our country of the year.
The award, in fact, goes to Italy. Not for the skill of his players, who won the European championship, and not even for his pop stars, who triumphed at Eurovision. We have chosen Italy for its political path. The Economist has often criticized Italy for choosing leaders like Silvio Berlusconi, who should have followed the advice of the Eurovision-winning band while remaining “quiet and good”. Due to the bad activity of the various governments, Italians were poorer in 2019 than they were in 2000. But this year things have changed.
In Mario Draghi, Italy has chosen a competent and internationally respected prime minister. For once, a large majority of politicians have decided to put aside their differences to support a reform program that should allow Rome to obtain the funds it deserves under the post-pandemic recovery plan. The vaccination rate in Italy is among the highest in Europe. After a difficult 2020, the Italian economy is recovering faster than those of France or Germany. Of course, there is a risk that this trend towards good governance could be reversed. Draghi would like to be elected president of the republic (a representative role) and his successor may be less competent. But we cannot deny that Italy today is a better country than in December last year. For this reason Italy is our country of the year. Best wishes!
(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)
This article was published in The Economist weekly.
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