Muslim Democracies?

[Spezza]

How many Muslim nation have a democratic government? Or at least an elected body which has some actual power?

[Will Repair]

According to The Pakistan Link (http://www.pakistanlink.com/nayyer/01172003.html) On the issue of democracy, it may come as a shock to many to realize that already the majority of the world¹s Muslims live in democracies. These include Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia, which combine for almost 800 million people out of global total of 1.3 billion Muslims. Admittedly the quality and stability of democracy in many of these countries is frail and fragile. But in all of them the head of government was elected in a multi-candidate format with secret ballots and

[Opus1]

"Pakistan link" describes Pakistan as a democracy? In what alternative universe?

Freedomhouse.org ranks all the countries in the world on a 1-7 scale for Political Rights and Civil Liberties, 1 being the best, 7 being the worst. Indonesia gets a 3/4; Malaysia a 5/5; Bangladesh a 4/4, all for rankings of "Partly free." Pakistan gets a 6/5 for a resounding "Not free." India is the only country on that list that gets a "Free" rating, and just barely. And of course, Muslims are a minority there.

Northern Africa is where you want to look for Muslim democracies. Senegal and Mali both get "free" ratings from Freedom House and there may be others.

[Northern Piper]

And as we just saw in the Iranian elections, there may be universal adult suffrage in Iran, but you only get to vote for candidates that the ruling council of ayatolluahs approves - opposition candidates don't get on the ballot. Doesn't sound particularly free or democratic to me.

[Squink]

Indonesia (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/id.html)

[Tapioca Dextrin]

Morrocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt are all pretty much democratic.

[zimaane]

Morocco has a hereditary king who is the true power in that country. There have been some move to reform, but it's hardly pretty much a democracy.

Algeria had its first successful national election recently.

Tunisia and Egypt have the trappings of democracy, but both are dominated by one individual. I don't think either has had a true multiparty election.

Turkey is the most democratic majority Muslim country.

[cmkeller]

Tapioca Dextrin:

I'm aware that Algeria recently held multi-party Parliamentary elections, but since when does Egypt have any sort of multi-party elected government? And regarding Morocco, isn't the king still absolute sovoreign, and the elections there were only for an advisory role?

As for Pakistan, it definitely was a democracy - until our buddy Musharraf pulled a coup. I can't see it being considered one, though, until free elections are once again arranged there, something he has consistently promised but neglected to do.

[Tapioca Dextrin]

Tapioca Dextrin:
but since when does Egypt have any sort of multi-party elected government? And regarding Morocco, isn't the king still absolute sovoreign, and the elections there were only for an advisory role?


Looks I posted to quickly, sorry. Morroco, Tunisia and Egypt don't measure up to Western notions of what is democratic

[Tapioca Dextrin]

Look like we might be able to add Albania (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/al.html#Govt) to the list, though

[Captain Amazing]

To expand on what Opus1 said, Freedom House says that there are 9 Muslim electoral democracies and 38 non-electoral democracies. Among Muslim countries, 2 are free, 17 are partly free, and 28 are not free.

http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/freeworld/2004/charts2004.pdf

[clairobscur]

Morrocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt are all pretty much democratic.



Well...Morroco : except that the king retains much powers and actually tends to decide before the elections which parties will form the government.

Tunisia : Definitely not. Though multipartism exists in theory, in practice the president Ben Ali is a dictator in all but name.

Algeria : I would count it as a democracy. However, there's so much corruption and the generals have so much political influence that it's a long way from perfection. Without support from the at least a part of the corrupted military establishment, a candidate is unlikely to win any election.

Egyptia : It has been run by the same party for I don't know how many years. I wouldn't count it as a democracy.

On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being a banana republic and 10 being a western democracy, I would rank Tunisia at 2, Egyptia at 4, Morroco at 5 and Algeria at 7 or so. Purely subjective statement, of course.

[HennaDancer]

Turkey is the most democratic majority Muslim country.

Turkey should not be considered a Muslim state. Yes, there are heaps of Muslims there, but actively religious people (at least, actively religious Muslims) are routinely denied scholarships, government and other sensitive jobs, and in general are looked down on by the powers that be.
I have this from several Turkish friends.

[Mr. Excellent]

Turkey should not be considered a Muslim state. Yes, there are heaps of Muslims there, but actively religious people (at least, actively religious Muslims) are routinely denied scholarships, government and other sensitive jobs, and in general are looked down on by the powers that be.
I have this from several Turkish friends.

HennaDancer, how recently did you hear this? I'm just wondering because until recently, Turkey was *aggressively* secular - the legacy of Kemal Ataturk's drive to establish a Western-oriented state in the wake of WWI. Although nominally a democracy, Turkey's military saw itself as the guarantor of this secularism, and would periodically oust the elected government when it was perceived as being too religious. This happened most recently, if memory serves, in the mid-90s with the "Welfare Party". However, the secular parties that have been elected and, you know, not kicked out by the guys with Very Large Guns, have been notoriously corrupt. This was one of the factor that led to the electory victory most recently of the Justice and Development Party, a moderately Islamic party whose leadership has a reputation for clean governance - and the military doesn't seem to be kicking them out.

All of which is my excessively wordy way of getting to the question - does the government and public still "look down" on actively religious Turks, or has this changed?

[Johanna]

Hmm. Turkey's prime minister is now Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is a leader of an Islamist political movment. However, he has toned down his religiosity in governance and is actually quite moderate and middle of the road in practice. I have been to Turkey and there is plenty of private Islamic religious observance under the surface, which tends to be quiet and unassuming. So I would not disqualify Turkey from being a "Muslim country" at all.

I think Yemen should get some props for holding a free and fair, internationally monitored, multiparty election. True, the president is still ‘Ali ‘Abdallah Salih, who first took power as a military strongman, and is still sort of a strongman, albeit an elected one. Yemen isn't all the way there yet. But they still caught major flak for their elections from Saudi Arabia, for daring to have any democracy at all on the Arabian Peninsula that the two countries share. My frank opinion of Saudi Arabia will have to be reserved for the BBQ Pit.

[HennaDancer]

HennaDancer, how recently did you hear this? <snip> - does the government and public still "look down" on actively religious Turks, or has this changed?

This is mostly from a year to two years ago. If things have changed for the better, then GOOD!
But Turkey would still not qualify as an "Islamic state" because their laws are secularly based, not religiously. Lotsa Muslims, yes.
HennaDancer

[ralph124c]

It is implicit in the Muslim religion that all rights and powers derive from God-therefore any secular constitution (such as the US Constitution) which denies the role of God, must be in error. Also, since the governemnt derives its legitimacy from God, opposition to the governemnet is opposition to God.
So I don't see that democracy and the muslim faith can coexist.

[Jojo]

So I don't see that democracy and the muslim faith can coexist.

They can.

The problems lie in secularism and the muslim faith. You could have a non-secular democracy (just about). Personally, I don't think it would work very well, I think secularism and democracy go hand in hand. Two sides of the same coin.

But you could probably cobble together some form of non-secular democracy if you really put your mind to it. Important though secularism is, it's of secondary importance to democracy. Democracy is the main thing.

Take Afghanistan under the taliban. No reason why you couldn't have a taliban party and an al qaeda party fighting it out every 5 years. They have differences of opinion. The differences may be slight but they're there all the same.

Maybe the taliban think adulterers should get 80 lashes while the al qaeda party think they should get 100 lashes. So there's room for debate and the electorate could vote for which they prefer.

Actually secularism is quite a hot topic currently in some muslim countries (eg Bangladesh). Whether they should be secular or not. They can see the benefits of secularism, they're just not sure how well it sits with their religion.

The answer probably lies in some kind of fusion between secularism and having a state religion. For example, the UK is a secular country and yet the head of state (the Queen) is also the head of the church of England.

So solutions are out there, they just need to find them.

[hajario]

Malaysia is no Democracy. There is one ruling party and the elections are a sham.

Haj

[Wesley Clark]

Alot of mid eastern muslim countries are 'half assed' democracies, similiar to the democracies that existed when the western world first tried democracy. instead of the democracy having all hte power power is split between the democracy and the king/mullah/dictator, etc. Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and alot of other mid east countries are making steps to democracies.

But democracies are not that important a milestone, liberal democracies are. Liberal democracies are democracies that provide civil, political, human, religious, labor, and social freedoms and rights. Basically its a democracy that follows most of the Universal declaration of human rights. I dont know if there are any muslim democracies that would count as liberal except maybe Mali.