Arab countries face elections that will determine the region’s course

Elections across the Arab world this year will affect the region's trajectory for a long time to come, based on the views of Huseein Al Odat (Al Khaleej), Abdel Rahman Al Rashed (Asharq Al Awsat), and Georges Semaan (Al Hayat)

What the Arabic press is saying about elections due this year across the region. Translated by Carla Mirza

The year 2014 is a crucial year for the Arab peoples, featuring a series of legislative and presidential elections across the region. Elections are scheduled for Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Mauritania – and possibly Libya as well.

In the UAE daily Al Bayan, Hussein Al Odat remarks that the refusal of the authorities in these countries to conduct an in-depth dialogue between the candidates before the elections, the lack of freedom of expression and freedom of information, and the lack of protection for voters during the electoral process to ensure transparency of the process are all elements that dissociate these elections from the notion of genuine democracy.

“Before even voting, Arab voters know the name of the upcoming president, and not once were they surprised by the outcome (except for the partial exception of the Lebanese presidential elections),” observed Al Odat.

“It is the season of Arab electoral carnivals”, wrote Abdel Rahman Al Rashed, former chief editor of the pan-Arab daily Asharq Al Awsat. Elections have long been used by dictators as pretexts to remain in power, he remarked.

Arab republics like Syria, Mauritania and Southern Sudan are the products of a combination of religious and military institutions that have always had the upper hand in the region, he observed. He stressed that “the hope of seeing countries in the region turn into developed civil societies seems rather utopian”.

In Libya, groups of religious extremists who are yet to experience political evolution are attempting to seize the reigns of power by terrorising members of parliament, ministers and diplomats.

They have somewhat succeeded in sabotaging the situation by trying to rule the way Muammar Qaddafi did – through the reign of militia, observed Al Rashed.

The editorial of the UAE daily, Al Khaleej, described the situation in the country this way: “Libya is oppressed, its people are oppressed as they believed the nonsense they were told and found themselves trapped, like other peoples, turning into tools for various regional and international conflicts.”

Left to the reign of anarchy, “Libya has turned into a source of danger to peace and security, both regionally and internationally. The world has already seen what happened to Iraq, Syria and others and is watching yet another open wound where the future is unknown”.

The newspaper called on Arabs to understand what is happening in their own countries and in the region around them, as devastation reigns, with bad results. It called for a unified position that might save whatever remains.

As for the Iraqis, they are soon heading to the polls to cast their votes for a new parliament and government.

“As the elections approach, the gravitation of conflicting forces has become a threat to the country’s unity”, writes Georges Semaan, columnist in the pan- Arab daily Al Hayat.

“Al Maliki succeeded in investing all his financial, military and security capabilities,” Semaan added.

“He is still subject to multiple accusations from most political forces.

“The most important question remains whether Maliki will accept a defeat before a ‘political majority’ other than that his own? What will his opponents do if his ‘majority’ wins and maintains its current policies?”

Doubtlessly, he concluded, the revival of politics in Baghdad as a substitute for military force will contribute to the revitalisation of politics in the Levant. There it could act as a substitute for bloody confrontations, which is like a fire waiting for the wind to blow.