Hound, read the following point made by a Mid East scholar. Is this consistent with what you were saying in another post? Seems like it is to me.....
In the West, we tend to get excessively concerned with
elections, regarding the holding of elections as the purest expression
of democracy, as the climax of the process of democratization. Well, the
second may be true – the climax of the process. But the process can be a
long and difficult one. Consider, for example, that democracy was
fairly new in Germany in the inter-war period and Hitler came to power
in a free and fair election.
We, in the Western world particularly, tend to think of democracy in
our own terms – that’s natural and normal – to mean periodic elections
in our style. But I think it’s a great mistake to try and think of the
Middle East in those terms and that can only lead to disastrous results,
as you’ve already seen in various places. They are simply not ready for
free and fair elections….
In genuinely fair and free elections, [the Muslim parties] are very
likely to win and I think that would be a disaster. A much better course
would be a gradual development of democracy, not through general
elections, but rather through local self-governing institutions. For
that, there is a real tradition in the region.