The experiment of Islamic political parties' and movements' participation in elections in Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, Yemen, Palestine and Lebanon, disclosed a “complicated scene”, said Carnegie institute for peace in Washington. Those movements' compliance with democracy depends on a balance of power between reformists and extremists in leadership and on grassroots pressures, it said, adding that the Egyptian government suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood Group has weakened the wing of reformists and strengthened the extremists. The Islamists talking part in the political process in Egypt, Jordan and Yemen have faced difficult situations and “they in Egypt and Jordan were suppressed by the government because they represent the only organized opposition force in these country,” it said in a recent report. The institute, whose report entitled “The Islamists in Politics: Participation Dynamics” was posted on its official Web site, said MB in Egypt is a worthy concern. Its leaders have been influenced since early this decade by the reformists' ideas, who pushed toward a more liberal explanation of issues of democracy and succeeded in the 2005 elections to make President Hosni Mubarak's regime feel how far the group is dangerous to his rule in that critical time, and this pushed the ruling regime to prevent them from making similar successes. “The government suppression of the group has changed the balance of power within it. The Reformists' wing was weakened and the extremists were strengthened. But the group did not abandon the political participation idea and drafted a political party platform,” it said. That draft confirmed the group's return to its previous stances through an attempt to clarify how it would enforce its declared goal to keep all laws consistent with the Islamic law and regarding the formation of a council of religious scholars and excluding women and non-Muslims from rising to the presidential seat. These two paragraphs in the group's draft platform disclosed that the group is dominated by a conservative wing. But the two paragraphs faced resistance, and this confirms the reformists' wing is still somehow powerful, Carnegie institution said. It said the group last June elected new members for its Guidance Office, most of them are extremists. “With the exception of the Islamic National Accord [Wifaq] Society in Bahrain, all other Islamic parties and movements stem their ideas from MB and connect to it,” it added. Arab governments employ to mobilize the secularists to resist the Islamists, while the reality says those movements are very far from being able to make landslides. The political ideology of the Islamists participating in the political process involves a number of “gray mysterious spots”, as an ideological and political clash continues between the extremists who try to widen the use of Islamic law in the legal and judicial systems and the moderates who favor a more liberal explanation of the existing state. In Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain and Kuwait, there are Islamic parties and political societies separated from the religious movements. But in Egypt, the formation of a political party was not a real alternative to the MB group because the government keeps rejecting coloring the group with legitimacy. The group in Egypt is still seen as a “banned organization.” The Islamic parties are confused about the issue of political multiplicity and accordingly it is quite difficult for a religious-based party or movement to accept all ideas and viewpoints. Those movements are still unable to harmonize the established Islamic beliefs and comply with democracy, said the report. Those movements cannot endure the result of winning many seats to avoid suppressive measures by the government against them. What happened in Algeria in 1991 and Palestine in 2006 has alarmed them. Egypt's MB in the 2005 elections cut the number of its nominees and fielded independent nominees in 144 constituencies out of 222. And in the Shura Council elections of 2007, the group nominated only 19 out of 88 members. Kings in the Arab region own and rule, and presidents, like kings, cannot be removed and always tend to create ruling progeny. All Arab parliaments, except Kuwait's, enjoy only limited control powers. Kuwait's parliament, however, faces dissolution threats each time it tackles matters related to the ruling family. The two authors of the report concluded that if participation is not always a tactic to achieve more democracy and moderation, the absence of participation either due to the state's harsh measures or a movement leaders' decision, guarantees moderation because excluding these groups from the political process magnifies the extremists' influence within them.
