26 April - 2 May 2001
Issue No.531
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 26 April - 2 May 2001 Issue No.531 |
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Elections with a pinch of salt
Many Middle East countries have held presidential and parliamentary elections in the past two years. Soha Abdelaty attended a symposium that compared the polls
Speakers at an American University in Cairo symposium on elections in the Middle East seemed to have agreed that a healthy bit of skepticism is in order when studying the electoral process in the Middle East.
AUC 's symposium on "Elections in Egypt and the Middle East: What do they Mean?" was attended by an array of professors and scholars from national and international universities and research centres around the world.
The conference covered several Middle East countries. Professors and scholars took turns presenting their main points and arguments after studying the political scene in these countries. Special attention was given to the most recent elections in each country.
Although the researchers painted different pictures of the conditions that have affected the political scene in their respective countries, the mere existence of elections in this part of the world could be translated as a step towards democratisation -- but only if the polls reflect the true interests of the constituencies. "What we understand by elections and their objectives are not being translated into the political rights of the various communities in this part of the world," said Walid Kazziha, political science professor at AUC who was asked at the end of the symposium to sum up the presentations.
Similarities could be found between the political experiences of two or more countries. In the presentations on Egypt and Sudan, the professors studying the two countries saw that in both the government was directly involved in the process with the ultimate aim of maintaining the status quo and keeping the ruling party in power.
Maye Kassem, an AUC political science professor, argued that the government interfered in the 2000 parliamentary elections by sending in security forces on behalf of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) to prevent voters from reaching the polls if their intention was to vote for opposition candidates. Kassem said that this brought into question the ruling party itself and raised the need for it to restructure itself.
Curtis Doebbler, another AUC political science professor, argued that in Sudan, government intervention took the form of issuing laws that aimed at excluding the opposition parties. One example cited was the 2000 presidential decree allowing parties to be created but not allowing them to take part in the elections.
In other Middle East countries, governments seemed on the surface to be embarking upon a liberalisation process, but one that will not endanger their hold on power. "The elites in power have consolidated their position under the transition of a one-party state with a socialist economy to a formal pluralist democratic system with a capitalist economy," said Sami Zemni of the Centre for Third World Studies in the Belgian city of Ghent. "These elites have done that at a certain cost. They had to allow for some freedoms -- freedom of association, press and expression -- and had to co-opt some segments of society that had been excluded until then." The 1999 elections in Algeria, added Zemni, did not have any real challenge.
Similarly, the situation in Jordan is also one where the regime has been able to ensure support for itself in the parliament. Christopher Parker of the Ghent centre said: "The regime is using parliamentary politics to reorganise the neopatrimonial framework of the state in a more efficient way. The traditional leadership, the traditional tribal leaders constitute over half of the parliament and a large percentage of the parliament are pro-regime reformers whom the regime keeps loyal by acting as a gatekeeper to privatisation and global economy. Although on the surface it looks like there are some steps being taken towards liberalisation, there will always be a counter-effect, like cracking down on civil society."
In three countries, Turkey, Lebanon and Israel, sectarian differences have shadowed the electoral process. In Turkey, Baskin Oran of Ankara University argued that enhanced nationalism among the Turks and Kurds created rifts between the two.
The three countries are also plagued by external influences on their electoral processes. While in Israel it is the effects of globalisation, Iman Hamdy, political science professor at AUC, argued that the Arab-Israeli conflict is an added factor. "No country can survive this pattern. Definitely not Israel with its internal social and political divisiveness. The highly complicated and volatile Arab-Israeli conflict has proved crucial in the rise and fall of its cabinets and its post-Zionist uncertainties," said Hamdy. And in Lebanon, Judith Harik, of the American University of Beirut, said the Syrian presence in the country had tainted the results of the electoral process that seemed to be on the whole "relatively democratic."
Some speakers at the symposium appeared more optimistic about the future of democracy in these countries. "The current elections [in Egypt] are bound to change voting patterns... They have led to the emergence of voters as the only political protagonists capable of putting us on the fast track," concluded Mona Makram Ebeid, political science professor at AUC and a former MP.
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