الانتخابات كأداة للاستبداد

بقلم: مايكل سلاكمان

هيرالد تريبيون- 6/6/2007

انه موسم الانتخابات في الشرق الأوسط. سوريا للتو انتهت من انتخاباتها الرئاسية و البرلمانية. و الجزائر أجرت انتخابات برلمانية. و المصريون سيتوجهون هذا الشهر للانتخاب في مجلس الشورى. وهناك انتخابات قادمة في كل من  الأردن و المغرب وعمان كما أن الانتخابات في قطر باتت قريبة .

Elections as tool of authoritarianism

By Michael Slackman

Published: June 6, 2007

CAIRO : This is election season in the Middle East . Syria just held presidential and parliamentary elections. Algeria held parliamentary elections. Egyptians will be asked to vote this month on a new upper house of Parliament. There will soon be elections in Jordan , Morocco and Oman , followed by elections in Qatar , too.

So is democracy suddenly taking root in the strongman's last regional stronghold? The general consensus among democracy advocates, diplomats and citizens interviewed around the region is that the reverse is true. Elections, it appears, have increasingly become a tool of authoritarian leaders to claim legitimacy.

"There is a state of depression and lack of trust, or faith, among the Arab masses in the regimes and little belief that these elections can lead to the change aspired to," said Jaffar al-Shayeb, a member of the Qatif municipal council in Saudi Arabia , an advisory body that lacks legislative authority.

The problem is not just what this means for people forced to live under authoritarian rule, but what it does to the broader perception of democracy in the Middle East countries like Egypt and Syria that hold elections but also allow for a ruling class to hold a monopoly of power, limit freedom of speech and assembly and deny their citizens due process.

"There isn't any democratic regime in the whole world," said Abbas Mroue, 29, as he sat in a coffee shop with his friends in Beirut one day recently chatting about politics and governance

Yes," replied his friend, Hussein Jaffal, 31, "there is democracy, but there are no freedoms." It is that view that seems to be spreading, one that has confused the process of elections with the principles of democracy.

It is a conclusion that may well have roots in Washington , where officials have frequently pointed to elections as a barometer of progress, but may actually contribute to tarnishing the concept of democracy, diplomats and democracy advocates in the region said.

Iraq , where a freely elected government has been paralyzed by sectarian disputes, has stood as a particularly damaging example.

"Democracy itself has lost credibility as a way of government," said a Western diplomat based in Algiers , speaking on the condition of anonymity, following standard diplomatic protocol. "I think the Iraqi experiment, and the purple finger, didn't help anything. People now say this democracy is not the answer to anything."

The purple finger had become a symbol of pride in what was hoped to be Iraq 's nascent democracy. Millions turned out to cast their ballots and dip a finger in ink to prevent double voting in the first post-Saddam Hussein election.

Rightly or wrongly, the purple finger has become a symbol of failure.

"I voted because I was so excited, finally I can pick the candidate I want," said Hussein Marzouk, an Iraqi refugee now living in Lebanon . "But then I found out that I risked my life for nothing. It turned to be a phony game the Americans brought with them that was full of fraud. So why would I vote again?"

For decades there have been less-than-democratic elections in the Middle East , where ruling parties control access to the ballot for candidates and voters, and also control ballot counting.

In Egypt 's parliamentary elections last year, witnesses reported that the police fired live ammunition at voters, killing some to keep them from casting ballots for candidates aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood. And recently, as Egypt gears up for elections to the Shoura Council, the upper house of Parliament, security agents have imprisoned 80 members of the Brotherhood, which while an officially banned organization is also the only viable political opposition in the country.

In Syria , the presidential election was a referendum on one candidate, President Bashar al-Assad, in a state that has sentenced democracy advocates to several years in prison for signing a petition asking for political reforms and recently handed down a 12-year sentence to one man for membership in the Muslim Brotherhood.

"The system is rigged to bring to power people who are already in power," said Daoud Kuttab, director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University in Ramallah. "That is what explains low voter turnout and why elections are turning people away."

With the outcome almost always certain, and the manipulation so evident, why do leaders in the region even bother? From Syria to Bahrain , elections have helped to bleed off some internal and external pressure for change without making any substantial alternation to the power structure, opposition political leaders and diplomats said.

Said Boughadja, a member of the Algerian Parliament and an official in the governing party, said such complaints are unfair, noting that voter turnout is low all over the world, including in the West. An independent Algerian vote-monitoring commission said there was widespread ballot box stuffing in the recent parliamentary election, which Boughadja dismissed, saying if his party or its supporters were to stuff ballot boxes, turnout would have appeared over 50 percent. Instead it was 36.5 percent, 10 points lower than the parliamentary elections in 2002.

But Boughadja also did not hide his bigger complaint about democracy: that with truly free elections, there is no guarantee who will win. In the early 1990s, Algeria 's military canceled elections when a moderate Islamic party appeared poised to take control of Parliament. That decision sparked a nearly decadelong civil war that claimed at least 100,000 lives.

"The Islamist trend," he said, "emerged through the democratic process." That is a reality that has also become evident to democracy promoters in Washington , which may provide one explanation for why there is little discussion these days of pushing for full-blown free elections around the region. But political and social scientists here said that view once again misses the point, emphasizing process over substance.

"We should insist on wider concepts of democracy, on democratic values," said Abdel Nasser Djabi, a professor of sociology at the University of Algiers who said elections are increasingly viewed as a "technique" for misleading people. "There is a real danger this may lead to the rejection of concepts of democracy."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/06/europe/letter.php?page=2

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نشرنا لهذه المقالات لا يعني أنها تعبر عن وجهة نظر المركز كلياً أو جزئياً

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من حق الزائر الكريم أن ينقل وأن ينشر كل ما يعجبه من موقعنا . معزواً إلينا ، أو غير معزو .ـ