In Mideast, democracy struggles to take root
Egyptians go to the polls next week in what is essentially a one-candidate election considered by critics to be a return of sorts to authoritarian rule, after a 2011 revolution that sparked loftier expectations for the region. But the bigger picture is that in the Middle East as a whole, democracy has largely failed to take hold.
From Morocco in the west to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates in the east, monarchies have proven more stable than places that experimented with government of the people.
Non-monarchies like Syria and Yemen, which before their wars did have functioning central governments, never made much of a pretense of democracy — not even in the half-hearted sense of communist East Germany calling itself a “Democratic Republic.” And today many argue that with so little democratic tradition and so much illiteracy — in the case of Egypt, at least a quarter of the population — some places are just not ready.
Countries that tried fairly free balloting — like Iraq and Libya after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi — tended to find the effort mired in tribal and sectarian voting. That largely predetermines the result and diminishes democracy into something of a census.