Islamic parties fare well at Mideast polls

CAIRO, Egypt: For years, opponents of free elections in the Arab world have whispered warnings that if democracy ever came to this region, Islamic fundamentalists would sweep to power. Now, with votes counted in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it’s clear there is truth to the idea that strongly conservative, Islam-driven candidates do fare well.

In Iraq, a coalition closely linked to the country’s main Shiite Muslim cleric won 48 percent of votes in the first free elections in a half-century. And in the first phase of Saudi elections for city councils, seven candidates with Islamist leanings won in Riyadh, the capital. Neither vote means a new wave of fundamentalism will soon flood this oil-rich region. In Iraq, the cleric’s coalition will be forced to reach out to other parties to form a government, and its leaders have said they do not want an Iranian-style theocracy. In Saudi, a government already strongly Islamic could moderate the councils through appointments, and tribal candidates did well outside the capital.

Yet at a time when Islamic governments hostile to the West send a shiver down European and American spines, the results clearly show that in countries without strong political opposition movements like Iraq, Saudi Arabia and even Egypt, religious parties have a natural advantage. With their charity networks, their strong internal organisation and their history of opposing the region’s dictators, Islamic parties are sometimes all Arab voters know or trust. “They are more organised and they invested a lot of effort to mobilise people to go to vote for them,” said Mohammed Abdel Jabar, editor in chief of Baghdad’s Al Sabah newspaper. “There is a tendency to support the Islamist groups” anyway in Iraq, he noted, because of the society’s strong religious base.

That was even more pronounced because Iraqi voters “didn’t find an alternative,” Jabar said. In Saudi, many of the winning candidates were either imams in mosques who preach conservative ideas, teachers in schools, or people who work for Islamic charities, said Mshari al Thaydi, a Saudi analyst and expert on Islamic groups in Riyadh. “In a society where there is no cinema, no theatre, no alternative culture, you have to expect that people know only those who talk to them in mosques and schools,” Al Thaydi said. To him, that means democracy must wait. He believes in first trying to liberalise Saudi society, then moving toward democratic elections. Losing Riyadh candidate Abdul-Rahman al-Humaidi agrees. “Let’s forget about elections if these people are going to win,” the pro-reform university professor said bluntly. “Let’s have appointments.” It is an old argument.

In 1992, Algeria’s military called off legislative elections in the world’s second-largest Arab nation after it became apparent Islamic hard-liners were set to win. That drew few complaints from the West, worried about the hard-liners’ ascent, but it also prompted a bloody Islamic insurgency. Next door, many middle-class Tunisians support their authoritarian government, fearful that free elections would bring to power the now-underground Islamists who support head scarves, bans on the cinema and restrictions on women’s work and rights. In Egypt, a country of 70 million people brimming with young, underemployed men, President Hosni Mubarak is set to win his fifth term later this year under a system that outlaws opponents. Yet the United States never makes free elections its top priority in talks in Cairo — despite President Bush’s push for democracy. US officials know, as does everyone else, that despite crackdowns over the years, Islamic groups would fare extremely well if Egypt held a truly open election.

Yet other Arabs and many Westerners, including US officials, argue that even if Islamic groups are likely to win at first in the Middle East, democracy must start somewhere. They say governments might prove more moderate, and moderate candidates might fare better, as time goes on. Only 149,000 out of 600,000 eligible Saudis even registered to vote, al Thaydi notes. That may have given outsized influence to Islamic-leaning voters highly motivated to participate — influence that could wane if more Saudis vote in the future, he said.

In Iraq, the winning Shiites have not said they want to form a religious government similar to Iran’s, where clerics have a direct role, notes Stephen M Walt, a professor of international relations and expert on Islam at Harvard University. The Shiites do want Iraq’s constitution to have an Islamic foundation. But they must reach out to other groups — most probably the Kurds — to form a government, meaning those groups will have an impact on the eventual constitution. Many see that fact as, quite frankly, a relief. Says Senator Rick Santorum, a conservative Republican in the US Senate: “It was a good thing that the Shiites can’t just sort of dictate how things are to go.”