Source: Al-Ahram Weekly

Without a single exception, municipal and parliamentary elections in 2005 brought Islamist forces to the forefront of Arab politics. Parties and movements as different as the Shia-dominated United Coalition in Iraq, Hizbullah in Lebanon, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt secured enough votes from the electorate to form governments, participate in government coalitions, or organise powerful opposition factions. Contrary to the propositions in many accounts about the rise of religious forces via the ballot box, the Arab world is not witnessing a return of the sacred. Rather, Islamist electoral gains represent a long overdue political manifestation of the social reality. In a way the sacred never disappeared; it is only presenting itself anew.

Throughout the last decades, regimes across the region invested great efforts in controlling the potential political capital of religion. Religious institutions were attached to the society-penetrating state apparatus, religious discourses used systematically to generate legitimacy for divergent policy preferences of autocratic rulers. Even as religious forces made their way into vast social, economic, and cultural spheres, Arab regimes retained their hegemony over the political sphere. Especially in the 1980s and 1990s, a schizophrenic picture of most Arab countries emerged, where able Islamist movements were denied their right to participate effectively in defining the common good. Politics became the exclusive enterprise of ruling elites who relied increasingly on securitisation strategies to preserve their power.

Recent cracks in the authoritarian legacy of Arab regimes are gradually closing this gap between social and political realities. Elections, in spite of structural shortcomings and severe irregularities, are at long last producing results that better reflect the balance of power in the respective national scene. It is time for secular forces and liberal intellectuals in the region to recognise this fact, and reckon with its democratic potential.

Islamist forces are well embedded in the social fabric of Arab countries and capable of generating political capital wherever the authoritarian grip over society loosens. In post-Saddam Iraq, religious parties dominate politics on both the Shia and Sunni sides. Initial results of the recent elections indicate a consolidation of this pattern. The Egyptian parliamentary elections, although with a much lower voter turnout compared to Iraq, clearly demonstrated the Muslim Brotherhood's ability to mobilise its supporters and get them to polling stations. To downsize the significance of the Brothers' gains -- 88 out of 444 elected seats in the new People's Assembly -- by means of stressing that almost 80 per cent of Egypt's eligible voters did not participate in the elections, is deceptive. In moments of political transformation, silent majorities matter least, and organised constituencies most. Finally, Hizbullah's dual identity as a resistance movement and a political actor aside, Lebanese election results led to its inclusion in the government for the first time.

The electoral success of Islamists can impact positively on Arab politics at various levels. First of all, it puts an end to the dangerous illusion that political openings in the region will ultimately replace authoritarian regimes with secular forces committed to the ideals of liberal democracy as practised in the West. Realities on the ground speak a different, compelling language that necessitates a better understanding of where Islamist forces stand and what their priorities are. To go on investing hopes in seculars, even when their existence is more imaginary than real, becomes partially pathological in the current situation. Arab seculars remain incapable of reaching out to considerable constituencies in their societies, or of substantially influencing political developments.

More important, however, are the consequences of greater inclusion in politics on Islamists themselves. Participation in governments or forming significant opposition blocs in elected bodies gives rise to a whole set of new challenges. Recent Islamist platforms, although in general endorse pluralism and moderation, remain based on ideological sloganeering and moral claims. Whereas both components are strategically beneficial for actors operating at the fringes of the political sphere, sustaining them while acting from within greatly diminishes the ability to deliver. Comparative experiences outside the Arab world suggest that the pressure to move beyond ideology and to develop pragmatic policy preferences generates considerable tensions in religious movements, which in the long run result in more this-worldly orientations. There is no reason to believe that Islamist forces in the Arab world will not follow suit.

Yet, any effort to deal objectively with Islamists cannot avoid highlighting the gray zones in their positions and practices. With regards to gender equality, civil and political rights of non-Muslim population groups and religious freedom, Islamists continue to be trapped in discriminatory illiberal stances on vital social and cultural issues. These attitudes should not be ignored, nor should the absence of perfection be the enemy of the good. Moderation and pragmatism within the Islamist spectrum will be a long and uneven process. A key step in this process is Islamists' inclusion in the political sphere in a way that confronts them with the real challenges of managing contemporary societies, and gives them space to experiment in public with different moderate views. Here lies the democratic potential of the Arab elections in 2005. Political spheres that reflect social realities and accommodate increasingly pragmatic Islamists are by far more conducive to democratic openings than the continuation of the authoritarian sustained grand illusion of religion-free politics.

* The writer is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.