DITCHING POINT 14, VINDICATING POINT 5, EVEN IF NINE DECADES LATE:

The Birth Pangs of Arab Democracy (Joshua Muravchik, January 9, 2005, LA Times)

For the Arab world, 2005 may be remembered as the year of the election. Today, Palestinians will choose a new president. Three weeks later, Iraqis will elect a national assembly. This will be only the beginning. Palestinians will go to the polls no fewer than three more times before the year is out, to elect municipal councils, a new legislative body and new leadership within Fatah, the dominant political party. The Iraqi assembly, in addition to forming a government, will write a constitution that will be put to a national referendum in the fall, followed by new elections.

Since Palestine and Iraq are the twin causes on which the eyes of the Arab world have been riveted, their example will reverberate throughout the region. And they will not be the only places where elections will be held.

From February through April, Saudi Arabia will hold municipal elections throughout the kingdom, a landmark step of popular participation for an absolutist regime that has imprisoned academics merely for advocating constitutional monarchy.

This spring, Lebanon will hold parliamentary elections. These are nothing new, but for the first time, a multiethnic opposition to the Syrian puppet regime might actually win a significant share.

Late in the year, Egypt will hold parliamentary elections, the first step toward choosing a president. The presidential outcome is noncompetitive and foreordained if, as expected, Hosni Mubarak seeks another term. But restlessness with the rule of the 76-year-old chief who has held the presidency for more than 24 years may result in livelier-than-usual contests for parliamentary seats. Elections are also scheduled in Yemen and Oman.

It's an extraordinary moment in a region that until now has resisted the tide of democratization that has reached every other corner of the world. Even such distant climes as sub-Saharan Africa can boast that 19 of its 48 governments (40%) have been chosen by the people in competitive elections. But among Arab states the record is zero out of 22.

This moment is more pregnant with possibility in the Middle East than any since Wilson wasted victory in WWI.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 10, 2005 9:18 AM