TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/062590/06250010.000

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                                                                                WORLD, Page 26

ISLAM

Ballots for Allah



An unexpected fundamentalist triumph in Algeria sends a shiver
through the Arab world and beyond. Is the fear justified?

By JILL SMOLOWE -- Reported by William Dowell/Algiers and Dean
Fischer/Cairo


    At 1 in the morning, five hours after the polls had closed,
Algeria's Interior Minister stepped to the microphone at the
government press center in the capital city of Algiers.
Speaking in a monotone, Mohammed Salah Mohammedi delivered the
startling news: the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front was
ahead in Algeria's first multiparty election since the
country's independence from France in 1962. Eventually the
scope of the victory became plain: the Islamic party took a
majority of the municipal and provincial councils, while the
ruling National Liberation Front (F.L.N.) captured only
one-third of them.

    For Algeria, the returns affirmed President Chadli
Bendjedid's commitment to the development of a multiparty
democracy in a region characterized by dictatorships and feudal
monarchies. For his efforts, Bendjedid is being urged by the
fundamentalists to dissolve the parliament, which currently
seats only members of the ruling party, and hold national
elections. "Any attempt to resort to trickery," warns Said
Sadi, secretary-general of the Rally for Culture and Democracy,
a moderate, secular party that made a poor showing, "will
inevitably finish in the streets with helmets against turbans."

    That prospect is sending a shiver of fear through the Arab
world. The Algerian election represents the first time that
Muslim fundamentalists have obtained a majority in a free vote
in an Arab country. While some Arab leaders are flirting with
reforms, most continue to cloak their disdain for democracy
with self-serving warnings about the threat of fundamentalism.
Algeria's returns are certain to support convictions that even
a little democracy is too risky a gamble.

    Arab alarms are reinforced by the building fear of Islamic
fundamentalism in Western capitals and Moscow. As cold war
tensions disappear, some intellectuals and politicians have
begun to argue that the East-West confrontation will be
replaced by North-South hostilities, which is to say a rising
conflict between the haves and the have-nots. Islam is a
religion that has appeal for the deprived. Moreover, although
Tehran has yet to successfully export its revolution, the
determination of Iran's fundamentalists to spread their radical
brand of Islam raises the specter of subversion throughout the
region.

    Arguments like this, however, often fail to distinguish
between the religious fanatics who garner headlines with
terrorist attacks and the far more numerous Muslims who seek
a greater say in their countries' policies. Anti-Islamic
attitudes also tend to obscure the import of the
fundamentalists' electoral gains. In Jordan's elections last
November and now in Algeria, fundamentalist organizations
offered the only strong vehicle for voters to register a
protest against government policies.

    Many Algerian voters were not endorsing radical
fundamentalism when they voted for the Islamic Salvation Front.
Rather, they found common cause with the front's president,
Abbassi Madani, who called the ruling F.L.N. a "party of
failure." Promised Madani: "We guarantee the freedom of all who
have ideas on Algeria's future." While such words are
encouraging, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini promoted a similar
message before he returned to Iran in 1979 from exile in France.

    Madani's party has put forward no concrete proposal to deal
with Algeria's sagging economy. There is no guarantee that he
can control the radicals, like those who took to the streets
last week chanting, "Oh, Jews! The army of Muhammad will
return!" And his party's aim to establish the Islamic legal
code, known as the shari`a, conjures visions of public
amputations. Middle-class women are particularly anxious:
Madani has proposed that women be paid to stay home and not
compete in the tight job market.

    The outcome in Algeria is certain to provide a boost for
Islamic movements elsewhere. The prospect that haunts is a
militant tide that topples unpopular regimes and replaces them
with fundamentalist theocracies. Some leaders are beginning to
recognize that the most effective safeguard against radical
fundamentalism -- or any other dogmatism -- may be to garner
the consent of the governed. Among the countries that have
taken tentative steps toward such reforms:


    TUNISIA. The country most likely to be shaken by the vote
in Algeria is neighboring Tunisia, which also held municipal
and regional elections last week. Unlike that in Algeria,
Tunisia's Islamic movement, Ennahdha, was banned from fielding
candidates. That decision no doubt stemmed from the strong
fundamentalist showing in legislative elections in April 1989,
when Islamic militants, running as independents, took about 12%
of the vote. The ruling party of President Zine el Abidine Ben
Ali claimed last week that it had garnered 99% of the vote --
hardly a democratic outcome.

    Still, since coming to power in 1987, Ben Ali has steered
a less anti-Islamic course than did his predecessor. He
reopened the Islamic university in Tunis, pardoned some 10,000
political prisoners, loosened press restrictions and encouraged
the creation of non-Islamic parties. Ben Ali's gravest
challenge may come from students and unemployed youths, who
will no doubt be inspired by the fundamentalist success in
Algeria.


    KUWAIT. Last week's election was called to select a 50-seat
National Council that is supposed to develop guidelines for the
future of Kuwaiti democracy. Kuwait has been without a
parliament since 1986, when the ruling family suspended it.
Nonetheless, ex-parliamentarians called for a boycott of the
election because they believed the council would be powerless;
although government candidates took all 50 seats, only 65% of
the electorate voted.


    JORDAN. Bloody price riots in April 1989 convinced King
Hussein that he needed to engage the public in the kingdom's
political and economic problems. Last November he called the
first national elections in 22 years. The result was telling:
of the 80 parliamentarians elected, 34 were members or
supporters of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood. Although
the moderate Brotherhood was the only organized opposition
force to stand in the elections, Arab leaders read the outcome
as a confirmation of their worst fears. While Hussein favors
continued reforms, he retains absolute control of defense and
foreign policy.


    EGYPT. Part democrat, part autocrat, President Hosni Mubarak
is steering a zigzag course. He has allowed opposition parties
to flower, and tolerates perhaps the most feisty press in the
Arab world. At the same time, he has invoked emergency
arrest-and-detention laws to crack down on radical
fundamentalists. Mubarak's party controls the national
assembly; the opposition benches are dominated by members of
the Muslim Brotherhood, who had to run under other parties since
the Brotherhood is banned.

    Mubarak is expected to dissolve the parliament and schedule
new elections for the fall. The fairness of those elections may
hinge on how Mubarak reads last week's returns in Algeria. He
will hardly be alone among the region's leaders if he concludes
that the threat of radical fundamentalism is too explosive to
risk legitimate elections. Then again, he may take a lesson
from Eastern Europe and recognize that countries tend to get
the revolutions they deserve.