Hopes for expanded Mideast democracy badly disappointed
(Mar 17, 2007)
Two years ago, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt declared he would allow rivals to run against him in the most populous Arab country’s first open presidential election.
This was hailed as another sign that political sands were shifting across the Middle East, with power in the world’s least democratic region at last beginning to pass from long ensconced rulers to their restive subjects. Some even talked of a democratic revolution.
Other signals included the holding of elections in Iraq and Palestine, the “Cedar Revolution” that shook Lebanon from Syrian control, fairer than usual presidential polls in Tunisia, Algeria and Yemen and a widening of the political franchise in several Gulf monarchies.
Hopes for expanded Mideast democracy badly disappointed
(Mar 17, 2007)
Two years ago, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt declared he would allow rivals to run against him in the most populous Arab country’s first open presidential election.
This was hailed as another sign that political sands were shifting across the Middle East, with power in the world’s least democratic region at last beginning to pass from long ensconced rulers to their restive subjects. Some even talked of a democratic revolution.
Other signals included the holding of elections in Iraq and Palestine, the “Cedar Revolution” that shook Lebanon from Syrian control, fairer than usual presidential polls in Tunisia, Algeria and Yemen and a widening of the political franchise in several Gulf monarchies.
Voices of dissent grew louder, often via new media such as satellite television, even as the Bush administration trumpeted democratization as the surest foil for extremism.
The sands are still moving, but lately look more like the contents of an hourglass that the same old rulers have turned upside down.
Except for a few brighter spots, the general trend from Morocco to the Persian Gulf has been towards a reinforcement of central control, a curtailing of public freedoms and a fading of hopes for peaceful democratic change.
Egypt itself, a country that is often seen as an Arab bellwether, provides a useful example.
The runner-up to Mubarak in the 2005 presidential election, Ayman Nour, languishes in prison, charged with forgery. The Muslim Brotherhood, which proved its potency as Egypt’s main opposition by capturing a fifth of parliamentary seats that year, remains officially unrecognized.
Government harassment of the group, which claims to want an Islamic form of democracy, has intensified, with hundreds of members arrested and dozens awaiting trial before military tribunals.
Mubarak’s government is, meanwhile, pushing ahead with plans to “modernize” Egypt’s 1971 constitution. It is true that the changes would abolish outdated verbiage describing Egypt as a socialist state. But they would also formally ban all parties based on religion, in theory shutting out the Muslim Brotherhood for good.
Judicial oversight of elections would be replaced by a government-appointed panel and special powers of arrest and eavesdropping that the police now enjoy under 26-year-old emergency laws would be formally enshrined in the constitution. Small wonder that Egypt’s secular and religious opposition, in a rare show of unity, have joined in condemning the reforms as a sham.
The pattern of regression is similar elsewhere. Jordan’s parliament has approved a press law that allows journalists to be jailed for vaguely defined forms of slander.
Similar laws have led to lengthy sentences for journalists in Yemen and Algeria, as well as Internet bloggers in Tunisia and Egypt. Last month, Saudi Arabia arrested 10 intellectuals for signing a polite petition suggesting it was time for the kingdom to consider a transition to constitutional monarchy.
Darker dictatorships, such as those in Syria and Libya, never offered much hope of change in the first place and continue to silence dissent with gusto. But countries that seemed to offer brighter prospects have also disappointed.
Bahrain, a small, relatively progressive island kingdom in the Gulf, had promised that last November’s legislative elections would herald a new era of trust between the disgruntled Shiite majority and the ruling family’s Sunni allies. But electoral rules again diluted Shiite votes and with opposition activists facing renewed harassment, unrest has again spread.
People power in Lebanon, the most politically open Arab country, did succeed in installing a reform-minded government. But subsequent turmoil, including last summer’s war that Hezbollah sparked with Israel, has produced such severe political polarization that many Lebanese fear the country is sliding back into the vicious tribalism of its 1975-90 civil war.
Despite the fact that the U.S. State Department, in its recently released annual report on human rights, had harsh words about American allies such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the tone of U.S. rhetoric about democratization has grown markedly milder.
Instead of bullying its friends, the U.S. has quietly offered rewards, including, for example, assistance in developing civilian nuclear energy for Egypt and Libya.
