ARAB REGIMES IGNORE TURKEY’S DEMOCRATIC EXAMPLE
By Saad Eddin Ibrahim and Mensur Akgun

Daily Star

Sept 7 2007
Lebanon

We were both in Turkey before and after Sunday, July 22, the day of the
intensely fought parliamentary elections. Given the contentiousness of
large-scale demonstrations and the fears of military intervention over
the issue of secularism, there were hundreds of international observers
expecting something spectacular to happen. But to their dismay,
and to the dismay of many others, balloting was calm and orderly.

No violence or irregularities were reported. It was one of the highest
voter turnouts in the history of Turkey’s democratic elections (84.4
percent). The highly debated role of the religiously affiliated Justice
and Development Party (AKP) was put to the test for the second time
in five years. The party passed with flying colors.

The Turkish political community had anticipated the outcome. The few
surprises had to do only with margins of performance of the various
actors. Though the AKP was poised to win a majority, it did far better
than expected with 46.7 percent of votes – 12.4 points higher than
its 2002 victory.

Among the losers was the Turkish military, which has never hidden
its deep misgivings with the ascendancy of the AKP in the country’s
sociopolitical space. It is widely believed that the military blessed
the pro-secular demonstration earlier in the spring as well as the
unification of center-right and center-left parties. Though clearly
rebuffed by the voters, the military seems to be learning to manage
such public adversities, at least for the time being.

The prime minister, and AKP leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, went out
of his way in his victory speech later on the night of July 22 to
allay the fears of AKP detractors. He assured all concerned of his
solemn commitment to the secular principle of the Turkish Republic. He
equally reiterated his drive to join the European Union; and proudly
pledged to maintain the high rate of Turkey’s economic growth.

The whole world was watching Turkey that day: some admiringly, some
cynically, looking for any mishaps to justify keeping the country out
of the European club. And yet others watched nervously, for fear of
a success that would put pressure on them to follow its model. Among
the latter were Arab autocrats, to whose reactions we now turn.

While Arab opposition parties, civil society and democracy activists
cheered the news from Turkey, there was official silence from Arab
governments, as if the elections had occurred on another planet.

Unlike the front-page headlines in independent media, the
state-controlled media in many Arab countries ignored, delayed
or relegated the Turkish elections story to internal pages or the
tail-end of their regular news.

By the third or fourth day, Arab media pundits reflecting their
regimes’ lines went out of their way to tell their respective
audiences how different the situation in Turkey was from that of Arab
countries. Some played up the chronic Kurdish, Armenian and Cypriot
problems as if to dampen any Arab joy for their northern neighbor.

In some ways, this was reminiscent of cool or even hostile reactions
by the same Arab autocratic regimes to Mauritania’s giant step toward
democracy. Libya’s leader, Moammar Gadhafi, already well into his
38th year of dictatorial rule, had dismissed Mauritania’s experience
as an exercise "in backward tribalism." None of the Arab heads of
state cared to attend the April 2006 inaugural celebration of the
democratically elected Mauritanian president.

It is abundantly clear that when such developments occur in Arab
or Muslim-majority countries, it proves doubly embarrassing. This
may also explain – at least in part – why many of these regimes are
reported to be undermining efforts to democratize Iraq.

The triumphant AKP was again victorious in the election of the
mostly ceremonial president of the republic, an event which became
controversial a few months earlier over the headscarf of the would-be
first lady. Yet a challenge for the AKP in the short-run will be
to deal with the army’s request to use military means to crush the
Kurdish rebels in the southeast. Erdogan has resisted so far in
search of non-violent alternatives and support from regional and
domestic players.

In the medium and longer term, the AKP has managed not only to become
solidly mainstream in Turkish politics but also, through its own
example, has paved the way for other Muslim democrats, in a manner
akin to Christian Democrats in the West.

Beyond the Middle East, the latest democratic election in Turkey,
coupled with the success of other religiously affiliated parties in
recent years in other countries, from Indonesia to Mauritania, may
be putting to rest the suspect proposition of "Muslim exceptionalism."

If countries like Turkey can survive as democratic regimes with
Muslim-majority populations, why can’t others?

Saad Eddin Ibrahim is a human rights activist and founder of the Ibn
Khaldun Center for Development Studies in Cairo, Egypt. Mensur Akgun
is the program director for the foreign policy department at TESEV,
an independent think tank in Istanbul, Turkey. THE DAILY STAR publishes
this commentary in collaboration with the Common Ground News Service.