This House believes the Arab Spring revolutions can create stable democracies.
The first quarter of 2011 saw a remarkable wave of protests sweep across the Arab world. On January 14th, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia who had ruled since 1987 fled following days of protest. This success for people power was unprecedented in the Arab world where previous regime changes have been coups lead by members of a narrow elite or the military. The Tunisian success emboldened opponents of other regimes across the Arab world. There was a wave of protests in Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen and most significantly Egypt. The King of Jordan dismissed his government on February 1st. This was followed by the rather more significant resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on February 11th following weeks of protest. The protests continued to spread around the Arab world. Protests in Eastern Libya resulted in a still ongoing civil war. Something of a counter revolution gathered pace with the protests in Bahrain being crushed by Saudi outside intervention. On April 23rd President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen agreed to step down but continued to soldier on for another couple of months. By October of 2011, the conflict in Libya had ended with the death of Muammar Gaddafi. As Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya undergo their first legitimate national elections in decades, Syria and Yemen face uncertatinty as violence continues and the goal line appears more and more distant.
Believe it
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Do not believe it
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Many middle eastern states already have institutions that are similar to the representative institutions that a stable democracy needs so can easily become the real thing. Arab dictators have grown adept at holding elections, setting up parliaments; constitutional courts etc. as window dressing to show either to their people or to the outside world that they are reforming and are ‘democratic’. No matter how undemocratic these regimes have been the simple existence of these institutions is useful when there is a revolution as they allow some continuity and the possibility of a transition to democracy. To take Egypt where protests toppled the Mubarak regime as an example. It has a parliament with the Majilis Al-Sha’ab (People’s Assembly) as its lower house and Majilis Al-Shura (Shura Council) as its upper house. In both houses a majority of the members are directly elected.[1] Egypt held elections for its parliament as recently as November 2010, these elections had very poor turnout and blatant ballot rigging while the main opposition the Muslim Brotherhood have to stand as independents.[2] Egypt also has previously had local elections for 52,000 municipal council seats in some 4,500 towns and cities. These elections are just as fraudulent as those for the national parliament. According to Muslim Brotherhood MP Jamdi Hassan “The ruling party used to allow opposition candidates to run and then simply rig the elections. Now, it has adopted a new strategy to ensure its continued domination: preventing the opposition from fielding any candidates at all.”[3] This may not be the best democratic tradition but at least it is a start. Similarly Egypt has a Supreme Constitutional Court that is supposed to be independent.[4] While these institutions may have ceased working in a democratic way they could quite easily be changed in to being fully democratic. This would create the necessary checks and balances to sustain democracy over the long term. The people are used to elections and will know what to do when they have the option to vote freely, they would vote in a broad range of candidates. Many of them may be islamist but it would be democratic. [1] Wikipedia, ‘Parliament of Egypt’, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Egypt accessed 19/05/2011 [2] Egypt hold parliamentary poll, 28/11/2010, BBC News, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11855691 [3] Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani Opposition Squeezed in Local Elections, IPS News, 17/3/08, http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41618 [4] The Supreme Constitutional Court, ‘Historical Overview’, http://hccourt.gov.eg/About/history.asp Side: Believe it
While the presence of pre-existing institutions is an advantage in transitioning to a democracy, that advantage may be compromised when these institutions are largely seen as illegitimate and have not fostered a democratic political culture. Key to the development of a democratic political culture is confidence in institutions and a willingness to accept the popular will as carried out by those institutions. The predominance of the Executive over the Legislature is rather reminiscent of the Imperial Russian State Duma (1905-1917) as with Tunisia and Bahrain the lower house was directly elected, although the system was heavily weighted to produce pliant Dumas from 1907 on, and the upper house appointed. There was quite a plurality of parties and the Duma had control over a wide area of legislation but not over areas such as military policy and the Tsar had veto powers.[1] It certainly cannot be said that the Duma’s existence proved to be conducive to the creation of a stable democracy after the fall of the Tsar, or even a stable state of any sort. The existence of the necessary institutions therefore does not mean anything if those very institutions are not seen as legitimate. [1] E. A. Goldenweiser, ‘The Russian Duma’, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Sep., 1914), pp. 408-422 Side: Do not believe it
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Since the 1970s, Arab state governments have become especially corrupt and oppressive, and have failed to provide essential social services on a consistent basis. Over the past forty years, people in the region have had to become increasingly reliant on informal networks and institutions in order to ensure personal and familial security and livlihood. This has degraded hopes of a relationship of trust between the state and people, causing people to committ themselves to differing factions, gangs, tribes, and parties in order to sustain themselves. It is apparent that the resulting factionalism may stand as a barrier to democracy, as parties hold fast to ideological committments and interest groups instead of political compromise and power-sharing. This is especially rampant in post-conflict states, as is the case in Iraq. The current Iraqi government took 249 days to form.[1] The conditions for creating a stable government in Iraq seem to be based more on appeasing all the relevant groups than creating a working government. Lebanon, perhaps the most democratic Arab country also has its problems, the national unity government collapsed this month after 11 ministers from Hezbollah and its allies resigned.[2],[3] The third example of an emerging democracy is of course Palestine. President Mahmoud Abbas, elected in 2005, continues in office despite his term having expired in January 2009. He extended his term, which opponents say breached the Palestinian Basic Law.[4] In 2007 clashes broke out between Fatah and Hamas, the two most prominent political parties, as a result of over a year of attempted political sabotage after Hamas won the election and Fatah refused to form a coalition in order to govern. These examples show that in environments where there are high levels of violence and conflict, factionalism takes hold over democratic governance. When law and order become difficult to establish under normal means, these regimes tend to seek security through autocracy and de-facto martial law, as has been happening under Maliki in Iraq or under Hamas and Fatah in the Occupied Territories. Libya may face this same challenge after its July 2012 election, as tensions remain high after the country was divided between Qaddafi loyalists and the patchwork rebel network. Egypt also faces the risk of the military seizing power from the civilian government, as SCAF has already given itself additional powers and intends to create a shadow council that would allow it to veto parliamentary decisions. [1] Ranj Alaaldin, The Iraqi government’s patchwork alliance may struggle to survive, guardian.co.uk, 24th December 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/ [2] Hezbollah and allies topple Lebanese unity government, BBC News 12th January 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ [3] Lebanon is the most democratic Arab country, ranks 86th Globally, iloubnan.info, 25th December 2010, http://www.iloubnan.info/business/ [4] Khaled Abu Toameh, Hamas challenges Abbas term extension, The Jerusalem Post, 29th September 2008, http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/ Side: Do not believe it
The question is as much whether once a democracy has been established it can sustain itself as a system through multiple changes in government without reverting to dictatorship by coup. Notionally at least Lebanon has been a democracy continually since 1932, if the interruption of the brutal civil war is ignored. While that event shows that it can hardly be called stable in the general sense, it has been in the way that democracy survived even that cataclysm. Such ethnic tensions are hardly conducive to stable government even in Western Europe.[2] When Belgium’s current political quagmire is looked at next to Lebanon the differences between Flemish and Walloon seem insignificant compared those which a Lebanese government must bridge, so even if its effectiveness may be questioned Lebanon’s democracy surely holds out hope for all, particularly for countries that are much less divided. There are excessively high hopes for Arab democracy this early, given that democracy has only been the prominent governing system in the West for the past century or so, and only without widespread violence since the end of World War II. It may take more than a few months for the Middle East to establish durable democratic systems, but the first steps are certainly established. [2] Belgium: Still No Government, Mar., 1. 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/world/ Side: Believe it
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