Islamists in Power: Views from Within

Jessica Mathews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, opened the conference, “Islamists in Power: Views from Within,” which featured top Islamist party leaders from Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, and Libya along with influential members of the business community to discuss political and economic strategies for the Arab region.

Carnegie hosted Sahbi Atig, member of National Constituent Assembly, Ennahda (Tunisia), Abdul Mawgoud Rageh Dardery, member of Parliament, Freedom and Justice Party—Luxor (Egypt), Mustapha Elkhalfi, minister of communications (Morocco), and Nabil Alkofahi, member of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Action Front Party (Jordan) to discuss how their parties plan to address the challenges they face as they help to reform and build new regimes. Carnegie’s Marwan Muasher moderated.

Tunisia’s Peaceful Transition

• Fostering Pluralism: After the ouster of President Ben Ali in January 2011, Tunisia quickly organized free and transparent elections and introduced a new constitution, said Atig. He explained that in just over a year, Tunisia has become a more inclusive, democratic state that welcomes all parties in its Constituent Assembly, protects freedom of expression, and upholds women’s rights.


• Monitoring Mechanisms: Tunisia’s new leaders are taking steps to ensure that dictatorship will never return, Atig noted. These include the creation of a constitutional court, a committee to monitor elections, and a watchdog to enforce judicial neutrality.


• Islam and Democracy: Atig argued that while an “Islamic tide is rising in the Arab world,” Islam does not contradict democratic values. Minorities are respected in Tunisia and there is “no sectarian strife between the different religions,” he added. Although Sharia law “upholds justice and freedom,” it tends to polarize society, so Tunisian political leaders excluded it from the new constitution, he said.   


• Remaining Challenges: Moving forward, Tunisia must strike a balance between national reconciliation and accountability in the pursuit of transitional justice, Atig said. Until the new government took power, eighty percent of Tunisia’s economic growth was concentrated on the Mediterranean coast, while the inner provinces were underdeveloped. The government plans to “expand the governing base” through an ambitious program to curb unemployment, attract domestic and foreign investment, and improve security. 

Egypt after Mubarak

• An “Egyptian Alternative”: Egyptians have long debated whether to pursue European modernity or cultivate a distinctly Egyptian state. Dardery suggested following a third option—an “Egyptian alternative”—that respects Egyptian traditions but also looks to Europe for guidance. This would include a parliamentary system to prevent the rise of another authoritarian ruler and a “culture of oppression,” Dardery noted, adding that the Freedom and Justice Party is “not interested in bringing another pharaoh back.”


• A Civil State: After the fall of the Mubarak regime in February 2011, Egyptians adopted a democratization roadmap with parliamentary elections, a new constitution, and a presidential election. Dardery explained that as this process continues, the Freedom and Justice Party is more interested in promoting universal Islamic principles, such as freedom, democracy, and rule of law, than implementing stricter Islamic law.


• Egypt’s Christian Community: Coptic Christians, he noted, should not be viewed as a minority but as equal Egyptian citizens with the same rights as Muslims.


• The Way Forward: Dardery argued Egypt must avoid military rule, which he described as like a “theocracy but in a secular form.” Creating a society in which it is possible to meet openly, discuss sensitive issues, and agree to disagree is vital to Egypt’s democratic development, he concluded. 

Morocco’s Reform From Above

• A Third Path: Morocco has begun implementing a top-down reform process as a middle road between the old system and revolution, Elkhalfi said. This “second generation of political reforms” builds on a decade of similar initiatives. He described the parliamentary elections in November 2011, when the Islamist Justice and Development Party won a majority of the votes, as a “revolution of the ballot box.”


• The “Moroccan Exception”: Three factors are helping Morocco move “toward genuine democracy,” Elkhalfi noted. First, the monarchy has served as a unifying actor with religious legitimacy, helping preserve political pluralism since the election. Morocco also has a “dynamic and active civil society” that has embraced the reform process, he added. Finally, the Moroccan government has developed a “culture of integration” through its attempts to cooperate with Islamic movements since the mid-1990s. 


• Lingering Challenges: A number of obstacles remain to the consolidation of democratic reform, including implementing the new constitution, combating corruption, decentralizing power, and increasing women’s participation in political life, Elkhalfi added. While Morocco has launched an ambitious program to address domestic issues such as poverty and illiteracy, it must also take advantage of the political opening across the Middle East and North Africa and develop closer ties with surrounding countries, he concluded.

Jordan’s Struggle to Reform

• An Undemocratic Regime: Alkofahi drew a parallel between Jordan and Morocco, noting that both “monarchies do not have blood on their hands,” but argued that Jordanian King Abdullah II’s regime “is not serious about reform.” He stated that the government continues to isolate parliament and eliminate competition and its response to the growing protest movement has been tepid at best. Furthermore, the intelligence service is highly repressive and uses brutal tactics to intimidate opponents of the regime.


• Justifications for Inaction: Jordan’s government often raises the “specter of Islamist movements” in order to bolster support for King Abdullah II, said Alkofahi. The regime has a tendency to use the unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict and plight of Palestinian refugees in Jordan as a convenient excuse to halt democratization. In reality, however, the Palestinian problem “is just an illusion to hinder the reform process,” he noted.


• The Islamist Alternative: Jordan’s Islamist movement is the only political entity that supports peaceful transfer of power and women’s participation in government, Alkofahi argued. Throughout Jordan’s history, he added, there has been no religious strife between Muslims and Christians. Political coalitions have overcome religious and ideological differences in the past, and Islamic parties have occasionally even elected Christian representatives.
  
   

One of the major challenges that Islamist parties in power face is drafting a new constitution. Khaled Al-Qazzaz, foreign relations coordinator, Freedom and Justice Party (Egypt); Osama Al Saghir, member of National Constituent Assembly, Ennahda (Tunisia); and Mohamed Gaair, head of public relations, Muslim Brotherhood (Libya), discussed how a new constitution could be drafted to act as an instrument of reconciliation and how it should define the place of Islam and sharia. The panel also addressed the growing chasm dividing Islamic parties from liberals and leftists. Carnegie’s Nathan J. Brown moderated.

The Role of Sharia

Qazzaz, Al Saghir, and Gaair discussed their parties’ positions on the role of sharia in their countries, which illustrated some major differences between the Islamist parties:

• No Need for Sharia in the Constitution: Al Saghir argued that there was no need to explicitly refer to sharia in the Tunisian constitution because constitutions are consensual documents that must represent all parts of Tunisian society and that all parties agreed upon the “Islamic and Arab identity of Tunisia” as a better point of reference for consensus.
   
• Sharia Explicitly Mentioned: Qazzaz said that the Freedom and Justice party, and all main parties in Egypt, supported the wording of Article II of the current constitution which states that the principles of the sharia ARE the main source of legislation. When pressed by Brown on which institution would have the right to interpret what sharia meant and how it was implemented, Qazzaz said that this would be the role of the elected parliament, not al-Azhar, the clerics.
   
• Unified Culture: Gaair anticipated the Libyan constitution would be closer to the Egyptian rather than the Tunisian model on this issue. He noted that unlike Tunisia and Egypt, the Libyan people are almost all Sunni Arabs and Islamists, and that because Libya does not have liberals, leftists, or seculars, it would be easier for them to push for a stronger role of sharia in the constitution.

Differences with Other Modern Constitutions

• A Role for International Human Rights Law: The speakers differed on the implementation of international human rights instruments in their domestic constitutions. Al Saghir said that Ennahda supported respecting all international conventions that did not contradict the Arab and Islamic identity of Tunisia. He added that it would be up to the parliament, elected by the people, to decide whether or not this condition had been met. Qazzaz noted that the Mubarak regime signed all international human rights conventions but did not implement any. The Freedom and Justice party believes that God requires them to uphold human rights, Qazzaz said. Disrespect of human rights and women’s rights results from dictatorships and colonized minds and lands, he added. Gaair agreed that Islamic principles do not contradict international human rights conventions except on minor issues when Arab and Islamic cultures may have a different interpretation than the West.
   
• Modern Democracies: Qazzaz said that most modern constitutions in the world uphold the higher objectives (or the “maqasid”) of the sharia, a view that was echoed by Al Saghir and Gaair. All three noted that sharia principles call for justice, democracy, freedom, pluralism, and the rule of law, all of which are protected in modern constitutions in the world, and that their Islamist parties only differ on minor issues.

Challenges for the Future

• Presidential Versus Parliamentary System: Qazzaz and Al Saghir both noted that the question of what type of government would exist—a presidential or a parliamentary system—would probably be the highly contested by different parts of society during the constitution writing process.
   
• Decentralization: Gaair argued that in Libya, decentralization was probably going to be the most contentious issue while writing the new constitution, especially since the Libyan people in the East, in reaction to the centralized tyranny of the Qadhafi regime, want a return to decentralized government  as a bulwark to future tyranny.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius gave the keynote address during the conference “Islamists in Power: Views from Within,” discussing President Obama’s Middle East policy and the administration’s response to the regional Arab Awakening.

President Obama’s Foreign Policy

• Iraq and Afghanistan: President Obama’s commitment to pulling out of Iraq meant that the United States had no choice but to accept the Maliki government. The president’s approach to Afghanistan also involved keeping an open mind and being willing to participate in negotiations with the Taliban.
   
• Iran’s Nuclear Program: Although the president has stated his commitment to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, he remains hopeful that engagement is possible. Any attempt to engage Iran would need to involve the country’s Supreme Leader.
   
• Arab-Israeli Peace: While President Obama expressed a clear intent to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict at the very beginning of his presidency, but he was unsuccessful.  Negotiations are now “on life support.”

U.S. Response to the Arab Spring

• General Approach: Overall, the Obama administration understood that change was coming to the Middle East. The “Obama doctrine” calls for American military intervention only where interests are directly threatened and only with international support.
   
• “Secret Commander”:  Yemen and its managed transition, with much diplomacy behind the scenes, suggest that President Obama may be a “better secret commander than a usual commander-in-chief.”
   
• Syria: The situation in Syria is difficult but the United States has resisted calls to arm the rebels for fear that militarization of the conflict would lead to the death of more civilians, possibly driving more Syrians to side with the Assad regime.
   
• Bahrain:  U.S. foreign policy always seeks to strike a balance between foreign policy interests and values, and this is particularly clear in Bahrain. When Saudi Arabia told the United States that it was not comfortable with the Wefaq-Crown Prince dialogue, initially encouraged by the United States, American officials largely withdrew from the conflict. The work of the Bassiouni Commission was a positive step in an otherwise difficult situation.
   
• Next Steps for Egypt: The Egyptian government needs to ensure security, develop the economy, and focus on building tolerance into the political process.

Hussein Elkazzaz, managing director and co-founder of SKOPOS Consulting (Egypt); Mondher Ben Ayed, president and CEO of TMI and Oradist (Tunisia); and Nael Al-Masalha, chairman and director of Al-Essra Hospital (Jordan) outlined their party’s short- and long-term plans to address the present economic crisis. The panel also discussed the varying roles of the state, private sector, and international finance institutions in promoting economic development. Masood Ahmed, director of the International Monetary Fund’s Middle East and Central Asia Department, moderate the discussion.