THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE: POLITICAL PARTIES IN MIDDLE EASTERN NATIONS

Matt White

November 3, 2015

Liberty University PPOG 640 – Middle East Laws and Policy

            Political parties in the Middle East are frequently disbanded or created, and new alliances and party coalitions are formed. The parties themselves are not as geopolitically important as the greater struggles they represent, the ideological battles that outlast the party. Ideological conflict along ethno-cultural, secular and religious lines, and the political parties currently leading the factions, are surveyed in the ethno-cultural conflict in secular Israel, the Islamist struggle to regain power in currently secular Egypt, Kurdish rights and the reintroduction of Islamic values in the Turkish government against historic secularism and rising liberalism, and in the cautious fight for reform against the conservative regime in the theocratic Iranian state. The world generally characterizes a nation by the nature of these ideological struggles and not by specific party names, but the actions and attitudes of the predominant political parties on these greater battlefields can influence world opinion and global standing.

Israel

            The dominant political struggle in Israel is cultural, religious, and ethic, centered on Jewish Israel against the interests of predominantly Muslim Arabs. The world judges Israel in large part by the way the ruling Israeli party treats Palestinians, which makes the attitudes and actions of the ruling party, Likud, and of the Arab Knesset representatives of the Joint Arab List, significant for Israel on the global stage.

The Knesset, Israel’s parliamentary assembly, consists of 120 members who are elected through a proportional list system. Likud has been the ruling party since 2009 with Benjamin Netanyahu serving his second stint as Prime Minister, the first being from 1996-1999. In the 2015 election, Likud won 30 Knesset seats, and retained the ability to form a coalition government. While the coastal cities of Tel-Aviv and Haifa supported the liberal opposition, Likud showed strong support in Jerusalem and throughout much of the countryside.[1] Likud was founded in 1973 under the leadership of Menachem Begin, and first gained control of the government in 1978. Free-market economic principles are at the core of Likud’s philosophy. Under Begin’s leadership, Likud transformed a previously socialist economy into a stable, market-driven economy which curbed inflation.[2]

In addition to their platform of conservative market economic principles, Likud’s defining ideology has been strong national defense, anti-terrorism, and the promotion of the Jewish culture and Jewish nature of the State of Israel. These defining ideologies have been reflected in Likud’s handling of the Palestinian territories. Under Begin in 1980, the Knesset passed the Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel, which declared that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.”[3] However, much of the world does not recognize Jerusalem’s capital status, as Arab-dominated East Jerusalem was previously part of the West Bank territory captured in the 1967 Six-Day War. Likud has an international reputation for harsh and unfair treatment of Palestinian subjects and citizens through actions such as building Jewish settlements in the West Bank, strong territorial border enforcement, and police crackdown in their fight against domestic Muslim terrorism. However, many Likud supporters, who live under the daily direct threat of terrorism, see these measures not as extreme-right-wing, but as realistic state security necessities, and many hold out for an eventual peaceful two-state solution.[4]

A recent law increased the minimum threshold of the popular vote required for a party to gain proportional representation in the Knesset from 2% to 3.25%. This measure threatened to eliminate most all Arab representation in the Knesset. In January 2015, four smaller Arab-dominated parties formed a coalition party that submitted a single list for the March, 2015 election, calling themselves the Joint List.[5] Led by Masud Ganaim, the Joint List earned 13 seats with major support in Arab-dominated cities,[6] and became the Knesset’s third largest faction.[7] Due to the nature of the coalition, Joint List members represent a wide variety of policy platforms. Their only unanimous ideology is the protection of Arab rights and the preservation of Arab representation in the Knesset,[8] and in this, Joint List members have become quite vocal. On October 13, 2015, all Joint List MKs visited the al-Aqsa Mosque in unified protest, despite Netanyahu’s ban on lawmakers doing so, and demanded the lifting of recent restrictions against Muslims entering the mosque.[9]

Egypt

            The dominant ideological struggle in Egyptian politics is between proponents of a theocratic Islamist state, represented by the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), recently banned from government participation, and the stable secular government of President el-Sisi, backed by the For the Love of Egypt Party. This clash has wider important across the greater Middle East, as several nations are facing or have fallen under Islamist forces.

The Egyptian Parliament has been dissolved since June 14, 2012.[10] However, Egypt is currently in the process of forming a new parliament, with elections set to conclude December 2, 2015. The new parliament will contain 596 seats, 28 of which will be hand-picked by President el-Sisi, and 448 of which will be filled through individual candidacies in local districts. The remaining 120 seats will be filled through a winner-take-all party list system. The party with the highest popular vote among four regions will earn all 15 or 45 seats from the respective region. The only party in the current elections that is fielding a list in all four regions is the For the Love of Egypt party, and is running uncontested in the East Delta region.[11]

            For the Love of Egypt was formed in February, 2015 as a broad coalition supporting el-Sisi and the direction of the current government. For the Love of Egypt has diverse nationwide support, ranging from secular liberals to economic conservatives. A secular party, their overriding ideology is centered on a market economy and state security.[12] For the Love of Egypt maintains broad appeal with their platform of securing a safe, secular state, stemming from Egypt’s recent yet brief experience with an Islamist government that subverted religious and political freedoms, and Egypt’s current domestic threats of Islamist violence from the Muslim Brotherhood and other terrorist organizations. Since he took power, el-Sisi has become one of the most widely respected Arab leaders in the Middle East and across the globe. Supporters view el-Sisi and his government as a stabilizing force, and as their best chance to prevent another descent into Islamist chaos, unlike Syria, Iraq, and Libya.[13]

            The Freedom and Justice Party is an outlawed Islamist party, yet remains a political force nonetheless. FJP, which has strong ties to the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, was formed in 2011 following the ousting of Hosni Mubarak.[14] The Islamist aims of FJP run directly counter to the secularism and inclusiveness of the current government. El-Sisi’s predecessor, Mohamed Morsi, represented the FJP until he was overthrown in 2013 following Morsi’s declaration claiming ultimate power above the judiciary, constitution, and popular will.[15] Though the FJP is currently illegal and ineligible to field candidates in the 2015 elections, it is entirely plausible that FJP sympathizers of the Muslim Brotherhood could be elected into one of the individual district seats without having to declare party allegiance.

            As an Islamist party, the overarching ideology, platform, and goals of the FJP is the creation of a strong Islamic system of government. The Nour Party is a rival Islamist party running in the 2015 elections, though they have already lost one of the two divisions in which they had submitted a party list.[16] Representing the Salafi brand of Islam, the Nour Party and the FJP have fundamental differences in Islamist outlook, with the Salafis emphasizing the elevation of the Islamic faith vs. the Islamic state. However, while the FJP was in power, the two rival Islamic factions reached legislative compromises concerning bans on blasphemy and the secularist’s attempt to legislate gender equality.[17] The legal Nour Party is more fundamentally religious than the FJP, whom they viewed as religiously liberal. For instance, the constitution that was briefly enacted under the FJP declared the sovereignty of the people, while the Salafis insisted that all sovereignty belonged to Allah alone.[18]

Turkey

            Turkey is in the midst of a political fight on both religious and ethnic grounds. Under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Turkish government is trending away from its historical secular Kemalism, focused on Turkish nationality, to an increasingly religious government, focused on Muslim identity. The secular and liberal People’s Democratic Party (HDP) has emerged as an influential force, and a party that has defended Kurdish rights against ethnic oppression under the AKP. Contemporary Middle Eastern conflict along ethnic and religious lines has a driving significance for the Kurdish population, without a national identity of their own, and whose population is threatened by ISIS in Syria and Iraq. This places great regional and global importance on the clash between the AKP and HDP.

The Grand National Assembly is the unicameral Turkish legislative body, elected through party-list proportional representation. The AKP is currently in power, regaining a majority of seats in the November 1, 2015 election, 316 of 550, after losing their outright majority in the June, 2015 election.[19] Both President Erdoğan and Prime Minister Davutoğlu represent the AKP. Founded by Erdoğan in 2001, the defining ideology of the AKP is a unique form of pro-Western, pro-EU democratic Islamism.[20] The foundation of the AKP’s economic platform is the free market and limited government economic intervention as the model that best ensures the freedom and economic well-being of all citizens.

            The official AKP platform promotes maintaining a secular government, coexistent with an emphasis on strong Muslim values. The AKP Party Programme states in its section on Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, “Our party considers religion as one of the most important institutions of humanity, and secularism as a pre-requisite of democracy, and an assurance of the freedom of religion and conscience.”[21] Erdoğan and Davutoğlu reject the Kemalist non-religious promotion of Turkish nationality. As devout Muslims, their fundamental worldview is centered on Islam, and they openly express their personal religious beliefs and promote the resurgence of Islamic symbolism.[22] Rather than Ataturk’s notion of secular Turkish nationalism, Erdoğan and Davutoğlu nostalgically view the Ottoman Empire as the ideal of Muslim strength and power, religious zeal and religious freedom for non-Muslims.[23]

            Although the AKP nominally embraces democratic freedoms and liberal democracy, critics argue that in practice, the AKP has ruled with authoritarian tendencies. Countering the AKP is the HDP, founded in 2012. Ideologically, the HDP is socially liberal, promoting their core values of egalitarianism, environmentalism, women’s, minority, and LGBT rights. The HDP states that “The capitalist system exploits and alienates the masses…” Additionally, the HDP supports the notions of limited government, local autonomy, and direct democracy.[24]

            The HDP has earned recognition as the go-to intermediary in negotiations between the ruling government and the Kurdish population.[25] However, the party has been attacked for showing support for Kurdish rights, most notably on October 10, 2015, when an HDP-supported Ankara peace rally was bombed, resulting in 102 fatalities.[26] HDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş placed blame on the AKP, claiming the government was acting in cooperation with ISIS.[27] The HDP won 80 seats in the June, 2015 election, preventing the AKP from maintaining an outright majority, yet lost 21 seats in the November 1, 2015 election, barely meeting the 10% minimum threshold.[28] While the AKP dominated the election throughout most Turkish provinces beyond the Aegean coast, the HDP led in Kurdish-dominated regions in the southeastern portion of the nation.[29] HDP leaders blamed their losses on deliberate polarization tactics of the AKP by associating the HDP as a pro-Kurdish party sympathetic towards the PKK, the Kurdish terrorist organization.[30]

Iran

            Conflict in the Iranian government is between the conservative Principlists, aiming to preserve their Shi’a theocracy, and the Reformists, aiming to introduce political freedom in Iran. Iran is a major force in the Middle East, and by all accounts, has expressed nuclear ambition for either domestic energy production or weaponization. Whether or not Iran will remain supporters of terrorism, globally isolated and antagonistic under the conservative regime, or reformed and open to international dialogue is of extreme worldwide concern.

The Principlist Party has dominated the Islamic Consultative Assembly, or Majlis, since the most recent legislative elections in 2012. Principlists are not a single party, but a coalition of conservatives. The two main Principlist factions, the Principlist Unity Front (PUF) and Preserving Front of the Islamic Revolution (PFIR), represent 148 of the 290 seats in the Majlis, and are also joined by independent Principlists.[31] Principlists support the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, his hardline theocratic authoritarian Shi’a Islamist government, and the principles of the 1979 revolution.[32] Conservative Principlists believe in the concept of Wilayat al-Faqih, the designation of a Shi’a political leader (Ayatollah) to act in place of the missing infallible Twelfth Imam as a jurist and earthly guardian.[33]

            Reformists do not form a traditional party, but rather are a diverse group with aims of reforming and improving Iranian governance in practice without necessarily rejecting the principles of the Iranian Revolution.[34] Iranian Reformists seemingly faded into irrelevancy after winning only 20 seats in the Majlis in 2012.[35] However, many Reformists were suppressed and Reformist candidates banned from running as a result of the failed 2009 Green Revolution,[36] a reform movement supported by Iranian youth.[37] After Ahmadinejad alienated himself from both the conservative government and the populace through his international antagonism and domestic crackdowns, current president Rouhani was elected in 2013 as a new hope for Reform. Rouhani is a Reformist with a history of supporting the Ayatollah as a cleric, and has earned the support of moderate conservatives and reformists alike.[38] Former Reformist Iranian President Khatami stood for increased political freedoms and repaired relations with the West.[39] Rouhani has resumed Khatami’s Western outreach through the negotiations that led to the pending nuclear deal.[40]

Conclusion

            Middle Eastern political parties are fluid. Frequently, parties are disbanded, new parties are created, and coalitions are formed. However, the ideological divisions along ethnic, cultural, religious and secular lines within a nation remain a constant at the center of the party struggle, regardless of the name of the party representing their respective faction. In Israel, the cultural and religious struggle between Jews and Arabs is politically manifested by Likud and the Joint Arab List. In Turkey, the fight between secular, liberal Kemalism vs. religious neo-Ottomanism is seen through the clash of the HDP and AKP. The ideological battle between secular reform and theocratic Islamism is seen in Egypt through the For the Love of Egypt party and the outlawed Freedom and Justice party. The Iranian conflict between the Ayatollah’s old guard theocracy and the push for political reforms and freedoms pits the Principlists against the Reformists. The world looks in at these and other countries, and associates the ideological struggles and the manner in which they are handled with the nature of the regime and of the nation, affecting global standing and international relations. The representative political parties of the moment are less important than the ideological struggles themselves, which are longer-lasting than the impermanency of Middle Eastern political parties and coalitions.

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