DEMOCRACYS.ORG / COUNTRY BRIEF
Sierra Leone
Institutions and political conditions · 2025
#63of 179 places
+7.8points since 2015
58.8–71.7source-bound score area*
What the score says
Sierra Leone scores 64.7 on the Democracys Standard. Its score was 56.9 in 2015, a rise of 7.8 points. The lowest-scoring dimension in 2025 is free and fair elections (47.1).
What drove the change?
The score for Sierra Leone rose 7.8 points, from 56.9 to 64.7 between 2015 and 2025. 3 of the five areas improved while 2 worsened, so the headline combines competing movements. Public reasoning contributed the largest upward push in the score calculation. The latest year moved in the opposite direction (−0.6), so the longer trend is not the whole story.
This explains movement within the formula, not the causal effect of political events.
2025 context · Freedom House assessment
Protest conditions and labor bargaining showed improvement
Freedom House reports no major violence against protesters during the preceding two years and a negotiated resolution to a teachers’ strike. These developments concern the ability to assemble and advocate collectively. They are distinct from whether other oversight bodies, such as the audit service, operate independently.
Read the country report · Freedom in the World 2026AI-assisted source summary · not independently expert-reviewed
What this context does—and does not—explain
This is a selected development, not a complete political history. Its date may differ from the selected comparison period. It is not evidence that one event caused a particular number of points, and it may describe progress even when this index declines.
The scores use V-Dem. The narrative summarizes a separate assessment by Freedom House, whose definitions and coverage differ. Neither organization endorses this website. The summary is AI-assisted, source-linked, and has not received independent country-expert review. Source checked October 5, 2026.
Why democracy measures can disagree →Look beneath the headline
| Democracy test | 2025 | Since 2015 |
|---|---|---|
| Free and fair elections | 47.1 | −4.3 |
| Rights and checks on power | 67.3 | +13.0 |
| Public participation | 58.3 | −2.3 |
| Public reasoning | 89.7 | +20.5 |
| Political equality | 64.7 | +14.5 |
Dimension movements are not additive contributions to the overall score. The method also accounts for weak areas.
Three questions worth investigating
- Can people choose their leaders through broad voting rights, honest elections, free political groups, and open public debate?
- Which documented changes in laws, institutions, or their implementation occurred during the period?
- What evidence challenges your explanation, and whose experience is missing?
Use primary records and country expertise. A change in an estimate alone does not identify its cause.
Read with care
This is an independent educational beta, not a V-Dem endorsement. Scores are not percentages of democracy or judgments about a people. Small differences may be within uncertainty. *The score area is obtained from source bounds; it is not a formal confidence interval for this composite or its change.