Arabs jealous of Turkish elections

Arabs have been fascinated by the elections in Turkey, convincingly won by the moderate Islamist AKP after calling early elections in response to the secularist military's antipathy to the party's Presidential candidate. Al-Jazeera covered the elections as heavily as it does any Arab election (which means, quite heavily), while a wide range of columnists have written about it.   The AKP's victory is being welcomed virtually across the board, but the lessons being drawn vary sharply - in line with the intense political battles over Islamism which currently dominate the Arab political agenda (Hamas in Gaza and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt being the most widely invoked points of reference). 

In general, moderate Islamists have leaped on the results to argue that the Turkish elections demonstrate both that an Islamist party can be trusted to work within a democracy and that Islamist parties have an incentive to do so.  Essam el-Erian of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood describes it as a fully successful experience, which offers encouragement for moderate Islamists everywhere.  Many other Islamists - such as Mahmoud al-Zahar of Hamas -  see it as clear evidence of the continuing growth of the Islamist trend across the Muslim world, and the decreasing appeal of 'extremist secularists'.  Abd al-Wahhab al-Effendi similarly takes it as evidence of the continuing success of those moderate Islamist parties who can credibly commit to the democratic process - while also pointing out that beneath the secularist-Islamist conflict which grabbed headlines lay the secularists' fierce, repressive approach to Turkey's Kurds, which placed the Islamists on the side of societal reconciliation and non-violence in the minds of many voters.  Fahmy Howeydi begins with the stark contrast between honest elections (Turkey) and the fixed, dishonest elections in Arab countries like Egypt (a point also made by judge Noha al-Zayni in al-Mesryoon), and the high levels of popular participation in and enthusiasm for the electoral process.  Like many others, Howeydi claims that the Turkish experience shows both that fears of Islamist electoral victories are overblown, while urging Islamists to learn the lesson that democracy and Islamism must go hand in hand.

Those writers and politicians who are currently hostile to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood (you know, the Axis of Pro-American Dictators Moderates crowd) seem to be at pains to focus on the distinctiveness of the Turkish case in order to show why what works there couldn't possibly work in, say, Egypt or Jordan (or else their editorialists just ignore it).  One common move is to compare the AKP favorably to Hamas, contrasting the Turkish party's responsible behavior to the Palestinian party's actions in Gaza.  Abdullah al-Iskander, writing in al-Hayat, argues that Arab Islamist parties can't really be compared to the AKP because unlike the Turkish party they continue to cling to outdated ideological concepts and historical narratives.  Noting that the AKP never deviated for even a minute from the law or the Constitution, despite their strong popular support, Iskander seems skeptical that Arab Islamist parties would show such restraint.   Tareq al-Homayed, editor of al-Sharq al-Awsat, argues that for the AKP to live up to its pretensions to be the "first rational Islamist party" it has to, well, not do anything Islamist because that would provoke a military response and prove that the AKP is no better than Hamas (for Homayed it would necessarily be the AKP's fault if it "forces" the Turkish military to step in and abolish democracy - she was asking for it, after all; as always it's a rib-tickling delight to see a Saudi editor warning against Islamists in government!).  The Jordanian Saleh al-Qullab, writing in al-Rai, suggests that the AKP offers a model of Islam as moderate, enlightened, and rational whose success should be welcomed, while Arab Islamism is represented by bin Laden and Zawahiri - thereby erasing the mainstream Muslim Brotherhood from the picture entirely.

The Turkish election and its aftermath will continue to reverberate in Arab political discourse for a while. It's a good chance for the US and the West to try to show that it isn't comprehensively hostile to Islamist parties -  an uphill battle after it ignored the Egyptian government's repression of the Muslim Brotherhood after it performed well in the Egyptian elections, and boycotted and worked to undermine the Hamas government after it won the Palestinian elections.  I've no doubt that the Arab and Islamist arguments over how to interpret these elections have only just begun, and will bear following.

Comments

[Fred]

The AKP movement is a very interesting phenomenon that I'm not sure anyone understands very well, even in Turkey. Not least interesting is its implementation of aggressively free market, pro-business economic policies. These have spurred old and new business classes of Anatolia, who tend to have traditional, religiously oriented political and social views. In AKP's view, economic freedom promotes political freedom. I am not aware that Arab Islamist parties like Hamas or the Jordanian Brotherhood have economic agendas that go beyond unrealistic interest-free "Islamic" economics.

How much of AKP's example is specific to Turkey? Turks are the first to insist that they are not a model for Arabs. Still, some of the divisions that Turkey is after a century starting to overcome can be traced back the Ottoman Empire and its dismemberment. Turkey shares this history with much of the Arab world, so perhaps there are lessons Hamas and other can learn.

[Abu Tabakh]

It’s been clear for a while that the AKP phenomenon in Turkey fascinates many in the Arab world. When I was in Saudi Arabia in April/May, everyone wanted to know what was going to happen in Turkey AND, importantly, how the United States and the EU would respond to a coup. My Saudi interlocutors clearly saw Turkey as a test case for the way in which the West deals with Islamist political power.

What’s more interesting, however, is the possibility that AKP’s victory represents the beginning of post-Islamist politics in Turkey. In the run-up to the election Erdogan replaced a large number of parliamentarians closely associated with an Islamist agenda (such as it is) with 30 and 40-something liberals who previously had little to do with the Islamists, but have thrown their lot in with AKP because they want to live in a democracy. Of course, Erdogan’s move could be seen as a tactical ploy to keep the the General Staff at bay, but with a 13 point improvement over his 2002 returns, Erdogan likes the makeup of his parliamentary delegation and would be reluctant to push an agenda many new and dynamic members would likely oppose. Also, at the most basic level, AKP wants to get into the EU because it wants to forge a truly secular order in contrast to the present Jacobin laicisme (laik) system. In other words, they want to be able to pray however they would like without the state being involved. The most oft-cited example of this among AKP people is the United States. In the context of Turkish politics, this is revolutionary, but it is a far cry from an Islamist agenda.

[Great Success!]

Turkey's elections are like Iran's - it doesn't matter who wins because real power lies elsewhere; in Turkey's case with the military and secular elite.

Anyway, why do Arabs need to look to Turkey to see a Muslim democracy in action, when there's an Arab state which has regular elections and has an elected executive: Iraq. Its even got an Islamist government. Why are democrats so shy in heralding its successes?

[MoDster]

@Great Success

"Turkey's elections are like Iran's - it doesn't matter who wins because real power lies elsewhere..."

Not true - in fact, what we have seen through these elections is that their influence seems to finally be waning:

Yiorghos Leventis writes here:
http://www.atlantic-community.org/index.php/articles/view/Turkey%3A_Tough_Challenges_for_AKP_Despite_Landslide_Victory
Abdullah Gul, who defied the clear warnings of the Turkish military establishment by reaffirming his decision to run for president, declared: “I cannot be expected to ignore the will of the people … The will of the nation is reflected in the election ballots.” This prompted the e-warning of coup d'etat, that caused so much stir. Yet, the Turkish military has yet to follow through and probably won't do so.

The EU did absolutely the right thing by supporting Erdogan and encouraging him to keep walking the road towards further reform - they have robbed the military of one of their rimary excuses for acting against the AKP. After all, if the secular EU support the AKP so forcefully, can they really justify removing them on the same grounds, suffering isolation and removing any prospect of EU accession as a result?

As for the case that Arabs should look to Iraq for a functioning democracy - well, Iraq has an elected Islamist government, so far so good. But even admitting that, it is blatantly obvious that the country is going up in smoke. Kind of reduces it's potency as a good example for anything, don't you think?

[qawukzi]

AKP are not Islamists, they are just a political party that does not make it a point to insult practicing Muslims (like CHP), or Kurds, Albanians, Bosnians (like the ultra-nationalists). Also, they've worked hard trying to keep the US happy. Turkish Islamists, the Felicity Party got like 1-2%. While the AKP is a welcome sign for Turkey (less corrupt, less insulting to their population), it is not a sign of rising Islamist popularity.