MIDDLE EAST: The push for democracy in the Middle East could pave the way for the rise of a new Muslim authoritarianism within the Arab world, writes Michael Jansen.
Elections in Egypt, the Palestinian territories, and Iraq have shown that Muslim religious parties are certain to gain power in fully democratic consultations.
In Egypt's parliamentary poll, staged over a month in November and December, the ruling secular National Democratic Party of President Hosni Mubarak won 311 seats in the 454-seat assembly. The party's main challengers - independent candidates fielded by the banned but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood - took 88 seats, multiplying by almost six the 15 places they held in the previous assembly. If the election had been free and fair, the Brotherhood would have won many more seats.
In municipal polls staged over the past year in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, Hamas, the main Muslim religious party, won in 81 cities, towns and villages as compared with 121 for the ruling secular Fateh.
The Hamas vote is even more impressive when one considers that the localities where Hamas won have a population of 1.1 million while those that went to Fateh have 700,000 residents.
Three out of six West Bank cities - Jenin, Qalqilya and Nablus - shifted from Fateh to Hamas which also made important gains in Ramallah and Bethlehem. Hamas is expected to do well in the January legislative election.
Iraq's 275-seat four-year national assembly is certain to be dominated by politicians belonging to Muslim religious parties. The major Shia list, the United Iraqi Alliance, is led by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and Islamic Dawa. The Iraqi Accordance Front, a coalition of Sunni religious groupings, seems set to secure the most seats for this community.
This means that, once a new government is formed, Shia and Sunni religious parties, which differ sharply over federalism and other issues, are likely to get together to ensure that Islamic Sharia is enshrined as the law of the land and clerics have a key role in political life.
If free votes were conducted in Jordan, Algeria, and Tunisia, Muslim parties are also likely do very well.
Muslim parties are increasingly important because of the failure of secular rulers and the secular ideologies of Arab nationalism and Baathism which have dominated the regional scene since independence.
Rulers have not developed their countries, provided for their people, won wars, or governed well. Rulers have been corrupt, grasping, and prepared to deal with Israel - widely seen as the enemy of the Arabs - in exchange for US approval and protection.
Socialist-leaning, pan-Arab ideologies espoused by these rulers were abandoned, leaving citizens disillusioned and disaffected. Popular alienation deepened when all opposition was crushed.
Muslim movements provide honest leadership; a religious orientation accepted by the devout multitude; and social services such as clinics, schools and welfare handouts which cash-strapped governments cannot offer.
These movements have also adopted a hard line towards Israel - in tune with popular hostility which intensified after the collapse of western attempts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
These movements also benefited from the establishment of al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, Arab satellite television channels which broadcast news and views from an Arab perspective.
Although these channels did not promote a Muslim agenda, they carried news coverage which, in the eyes of Arabs and Muslims, condemned the West. They also broadcast commentary which damned Arab rulers who occasionally closed down al-Jazeera's news-gathering operations in their countries.
Democratic elections in this region are effecting the transition from secular authoritarianism to Muslim authoritarianism.
The clerics in Tehran, who seized power nearly 27 years ago, promptly adopted the secular authoritarian electoral model, manipulating it to maintain their grip by excluding opponents and closing down critical media.
Once the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (the parent organisation of all Muslim political groupings), Palestinian Hamas and Iraq's Sciri and Dawa secure popular mandates, they will not cede power to rivals in subsequent polls any more than secular rulers have.
Moreover, when they win elections, Muslim authoritarians claim they have God as well as the people on their side. Unless the authoritarian mold is broken and a regular change of regime is ensured, democracy cannot thrive in the Middle East.