A New Dawn for Political Islam?
Andrea Dessì 10 February 2012

On the 23rd of January Egypt’s first democratically elected parliament in six decades held its opening session. As crowds gathered outside to demand an immediate transfer of power from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the 508 delegates in Egypt’s People’s Assembly (lower house of parliament) gathered in a minute of silence to commemorate the martyrs of the revolution. Following two months of electoral infighting Islamist parties have emerged as the decisive winners in post-Mubarak Egypt securing 71% of the vote (369 seats). By comparison liberal and leftist parties won only 15% (87 seats), while candidates listed as independents gained 26 seats or 5% (10 seats, 1%, were reserved for SCAF appointees). It is important to note that the real losers of the election were the so-called felool parties composed of remnants from Mubarak’s now outlawed National Democratic Party (NDP) which only gained 16 seats (3%).

Many had predicted the new parliament to be divided between the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and ex-Mubarak loyalists but this scenario has not materialized and the biggest surprise of the elections has been the impressive showing of the ultraconservative Salafi Al-Nour party. Part of the Islamist Alliance, Al-Nour has emerged as Egypt’s second largest party in parliament with 124 seats (24.3%) placing it squarely behind the Muslim Brotherhood’s FJP which ran as part of the Democratic Alliance and gained 235 seats (47.2%). A smaller moderate Islamist party, the Wasat, gained 10 seats or 2% of the vote. Egypt’s oldest liberal party, the Wafd, which had originally united with the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Democratic Alliance but eventually decided to compete independently, came in a distant third securing 38 seats in parliament (7.6%). Other liberal coalitions included the Egyptian Bloc (34 seats, 6.8%), Reform and Development (9 seats, 1.8%) and the Revolution Continues which gained a mere 7 seats or 1.4% of the vote.

The impressive electoral showing of Islamist parties in Egypt’s parliamentary elections has been matched by similar victories in other countries in the region, not all of which have been directly affected by the ‘Arab Spring’ protests. In Tunisia the moderate Islamist Ennahda party won more than 37% of votes cast during the country’s first free elections, while in November the Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD) won a majority of seats in Morocco’s newly elected parliament. In Libya, where tensions and political violence have recently increased, no precise date has been set for the country’s first post-Gaddafi elections but free voting will presumably herald a victory for Libya’s various Islamist parties. In Algeria, a country which has had a long and difficult history with political Islam, several Islamist parties have been reported to be in negotiations for the creation of a united front to compete in the country’s next parliamentary elections scheduled for May 2012. Turning to Syria and Yemen, two countries with yet unclear futures, various strands of political Islam will again emerge as the primary political current if and when free elections are called.

While these results could be interpreted as a vindication of the warnings issued from various quarters that the ‘Arab Spring’ would soon turn into an “Islamist winter”, recent reactions from the United States and certain European capitals seem to indicate an acceptance of the need to work with Islamist parties and recognize their genuine political victories in the polls. In this respect the Obama Administration has taken the lead in establishing high-level contacts with some of the most important Islamist parties in North Africa. America’s Ambassador to Egypt, Anne W. Patterson, has personally met with the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, the leaders of the FJP and has announced plans to dialogue with the Salafi Al-Nour party as well as with all other political forces in Egypt. This is a welcomed development and represents a step in the right direction as compared to the west’s previous refusal to engage with even moderate Islamist movements.

Not too long ago much of the western world panicked following Hamas’s electoral victory in the 2006 legislative elections and later decided to impose an economic embargo on the aid-dependent Palestinian Authority (PA), effectively denying Hamas’s legitimate victory in the polls. Rather than convince Hamas to adopt a more compromising stance with regards to Israel, the international embargo pushed the Islamist movement further into a corner allowing it to continue playing the de facto role of an opposition party. Hamas was thus able to avoid having to moderate its policies in order to appeal to a highly fractured Palestinian electorate (Hamas had won 44.5% of the vote against 41.4% for the nationalist-secular Fatah party).

Today the west seems to have learnt from its past mistakes.

The reasons for this apparent policy shift are to be found in a combination of real politics – mainly that western powers cannot be seen as abandoning democratic principles after Islamist victories given their firm support for elections in the first place – and a realization that the Islamism exposed by such parties as the FJP in Egypt or Ennahda in Tunisia is a far cry from the more uncompromising, violent and deeply anti-western Islamist currents present in the Arab world during the early 90’s. Both Ennahda and the FJP have spoken favorably of the merits of a democratic constitution, social justice and free market economics, have voiced their commitment to the protection of personal freedoms, popular sovereignty and the rule of law and have also issued assurances to uphold previous international agreements (including, in the Egyptian case, the peace treaty with Israel).

In many respects it is still too early to tell whether the victory of Islamist parties in many Arab countries will lead to more closed and conservative societies, but it is no exaggeration to say that the next years will witness an increasingly visible marriage between Islam and politics. For decades various currents of political Islam had been harshly repressed by Arab dictatorships and at best relegated to the position of semi-authorized opposition parties. While the most conservative strands of Islamism, including the Salafi and Wahabbi currents, tended to refute politics and democracy as un-Islamic norms and thus largely avoided the watchful eye of the various Arab security services, other more moderate movements, including many of the various Muslim Brotherhood offshoots, have slowly grown to embrace democratic norms as the best means of attaining power in their societies. The famous slogan “Islam is the solution”, perhaps the most well-known Muslim Brotherhood motto, might have worked when these movements were in the opposition but now that Brotherhood parties have become the leading political force in many Arab countries their electorate will judge them on more tangible policies such as the economy and the pace of socio-political reforms. The primary challenge facing these Islamist parties will in fact be that of adapting their classical Islamic principles to the pressing necessities of the modern world – first and foremost of which will be economic growth and job creation.

The impressive showing of the Salafi Al-Nour party in Egypt’s recent elections has given rise to some legitimate concerns among Egyptians and westerners alike. It is however important to note that just like the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafi movements themselves have demonstrated a capacity to evolve and moderate their policies. The mere fact that Salafi groups have today entered into the political fray by forming parties and contesting elections would have been unthinkable only a few years ago when fatwas were regularly issued banning their members from any political activity. Moreover it is also significant that while Al-Nour had originally decided to run within the FJP-dominated Democratic Alliance, relations with the more mainstream Muslim Brotherhood quickly deteriorated and the leadership of Al-Nour eventually formed its own independent alliance with other more conservative Islamist parties. This would seem to indicate that a governing coalition between the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood, one which would come to dominate over an otherwise fragmented parliament, seems unlikely. Leading members of the FJP have recently reiterated their pledge not to enter into a coalition with Al-Nour indicating that they would prefer to avoid creating a governing majority and instead proceed on an issue-by-issue basis in parliament. While this may be considered a tactic to avoid having to take on full responsibility for the hard choices confronting Egypt, it could also be interpreted as a conscious choice by the Muslim Brotherhood to create a more inclusive political atmosphere in parliament.

A major test for the future direction of the political transitions underway in many Arab countries will be the drafting of new constitutions which will then be submitted to a popular referendum for approval. The outcomes are bound to take different forms in the various countries concerned. In Tunisia Islamists and secular liberals have united and, in the words of Tunisia’s interim president Moncef Marzouki, decided to “forget their differences in terms of ideology” and concentrate on social-economic issues. In Egypt, Libya and Yemen the situation is more complicated due to the presence of more conservative strands of Islamism. However, what holds true for Tunisia is also the case for other Arab countries and all major political actors must recognize that job creation not Islam is the most pressing challenge they face.

This was the message sent out by various Arab speakers at this year’s World Financial Forum in Davos. Addressing the conference Moez Masoud, an Egyptian Islamic scholar and preacher, explained why so many people had voted for Islamist parties in Egypt’s first free elections; “it wasn’t about bikinis or no bikinis, or whether to implement Sharia law. It got down to jobs, money and security, and the people wanted the best-organized groups” to lead the transition as an insurance policy against a possible return of the old elites.

Image: Ahmad Hammoud (cc), Protests in Maspero

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