Freedom House Wants Mandatory Democracy Pass for MCA Funding

Freedom House says MCA funding should not go to countries which fail to meet reasonable standards of political rights and civil liberties. To make this happen, they propose introducing a second hard hurdle into the current MCA eligibility indicators test -- to disqualify any country that falls below the equivalent of a 4 (out of a worst possible 7) on the civil liberties and political rights measure.As our readers know, we too have argued for a democracy hurdle, essentially to make more transparent what the Board is already doing. To date only one non-democracy has been selected by the Board (Morocco), although there is likely to be a second added Wednesday with Jordan. If the MCC were to adopt Freedom House's recommended hurdle in the FY2007 selection process, Armenia, Bhutan, Egypt, Jordan, Maldives, Tunisia and Vietnam who otherwise pass the indicators test would fail.Tell us what you think!