Word: islamist
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...Middle East grapples with how to democratize while also including the Islamist movements that have become increasingly popular in the last three decades, Sept. 7's parliamentary elections in Morocco offer some useful insights. A poll two years ago indicated that 47% of Moroccans would vote for Morocco's Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD). That 47% turns out to be a curiously recurrent statistic. In 1991, the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front won the first round of elections with 47%, an outcome that plunged the military into panic and the country into a bloody civil war. This July, Turkey...
...presidency heralds the start of a new era for Turkey, it's far from clear what that new era is going to hold. "Is this the beginning of a new period of compromise, or the start of secularist-Islamist strife?" wrote columnist Mehmet Ali Birand. A former foreign minister, Gul is widely known as a coalition builder who played a key role in Turkey's European Union membership bid, but his background in political Islam makes him unpalatable to secularists...
...Turkey's secularists remain deeply suspicious. Pointing to Gul and Erdogan's background as formerly hard-line Islamists, they argue that the AKP harbors a secret Islamist agenda. As President, Gul has the power to approve or veto legislation, and secularists fear that he will sign into law any bill passed by Erdogan's government without concern for the separation of religion and politics. They are also infuriated by the fact that his wife Hayrunnisa dons a headscarf - Islamic attire is restricted in government offices under laws that date back to Ataturk?s reforms...
...coming weeks. When he tried, in March, to dismiss Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on allegations of misconduct, the move backfired on Musharraf. Massive rallies in support of the suspended judge swept the country, and moderate Pakistanis who had previously tolerated Musharraf as a bulwark against corruption and Islamist extremism began to view him as a ham-fisted dictator attempting to remove a potential obstacle to his plan to remain in office. Chaudhry was reinstated by the Court last month, and today's ruling is an indication of the willingness of the bench to flex its muscles...
Last Friday, the lights went out in Gaza because the electric bill wasn't being paid. The European Union which, for humanitarian reasons, is financing the Palestinian enclave's power supply, suddenly refused to continue the subsidy because of allegations that Gaza's government - run by the Islamist party Hamas - was about to tax electricity to bolster its armed militants. Ever since those same militants ousted the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last June - thereby creating two Palestinian territories, in Gaza and in the West Bank - Western governments have refused to send aid that would in any way assist...