Beneath all the din of an Islamist Trojan Horse following the despots’ downfall is simple, savvy electoral strategy: promise jobs, preach broad cultural values, and call for justice and development. While Al Jazeera spread Mohammed Bouazizi’s revolutionary flame to Cairo and beyond, another pattern is emerging from the ashes of Ben Ali and Mubarak. It is best seen in the election results between the straits of Hormuz and Gibraltar. Who is getting the votes?
The winners in Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt have all promised job-creation and political participation – absences of both are still key popular demands – and coupled it with nationalism rooted in Islamic heritage. This is the model pioneered by Turkey’s current rulers, the Justice and Development Party, and is being adapted in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and, to a lesser degree, Syria. Is this the objective reality of Arab unity?
The Justice and Development political franchise is bathing in ballots: it’s name and platform won a slight majority in Morocco last week and a sizable showing in Egypt’s first round of elections. But the ideas of Justice and Development go beyond the name: both the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood-linked Freedom and Justice Party and Tunisia’s Ennahda have stated they’ve used the Justice and Development model.
But the bottom line is that none of the official or inspired-by Justice and Development parties in Tunis, Cairo, or Rabat will rule absolutely. Look at the numbers: all the victorious coalitions are surrounded by still-clamoring masses with 27 percent of the seats in Morocco and 41 percent in Tunisia. Any projections of results in the five-month long Egyptian elections should be taken with salt grains – and an energetically engaged public will moderate them. Specifically, Les Marocaines have a monarchy to deal with alongside a recently unified eight-party opposition coalition with a slight superiority in parliament; the Egyptian left-wing parties are forming a coalition; and Tunisia is still writing their constitution.
These center-right organizations wear the mantle of moderate traditionalists and call themselves Justice and Development, but when Turkish PM Recip Tayyip Erdogan announced support for secularization in Egypt, Islamist parties denounced him. Channeling the widespread popularity of Justice and Development, in perhaps a superficial adoption of it’s platform, is certainly wooing voters. Promising jobs and rights has worked before, in many places. Comparatively, secular attack ads on the Justice and Development platform failed in Tunisia. The real question is the nature of the program: is Justice and Development a radical ideology or a pragmatic campaign model?
And don’t forget the power of political economy – the leader of Tunisia’s Ennahda, Raschid Ghannouchi, this past weekend reassured Washington that his party would continue Ben Ali’s neoliberal transformation of Tunisia.
This was originally published on SISMEC as part of the Weekly Bulletin.
