Mongolia was rated as free with an aggregate score of 85 out of 100 in the latest Freedom in the World 2018 annual report released by the non-governmental organization Freedom House. Freedom House rated 88 countries as "free", 58 as "partly free" and 49 as "not free" in 2017. The report takes into account the freedom rating of a country, the civil liberties, and the political rights that its citizens enjoy. With aggregate score of 85, Mongolia was on par with countries such as Poland, Greece, the United States of America, and South Korea. In comparison, Mongolia’s neighbors Russia and China had an aggregate score of 20 and 14 respectively. According to the key findings of the report, democracy faced its most serious crisis in decades in 2017 as its basic tenets — including guarantees of free and fair elections, the rights of minorities, freedom of the press, and the rule of law — came under attack around the world. Michael J. Abramowitz, the president of Freedom House, noted in the report that “political rights and civil liberties around the world deteriorated to their lowest point in more than a decade in 2017, extending a period characterized by emboldened autocrats, beleaguered democracies, and the United States’ withdrawal from its leadership role in the global struggle for human freedom.”