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Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0105/p09s02-coop.htm
Mideast Democracy
(Christian Science Monitor) Lisa Anderson - There were more elections held in the Middle East in the past year than ever before. But are liberty and democracy really served by elections mounted largely to please an international patron like the U.S.? Certainly by most standards, none of the elections included all, or even most, of the possible participants. Moreover, across the region, the more free and fair the elections were, the less successful were ostensibly democratic parties; in both Palestinian and Egyptian elections, Islamist parties did far better than expected. For many of the governments, elections are a necessary evil, an expensive spectacle produced for the benefit of eager audiences in Washington. Most of the participants in these spectacles know perfectly well what the outcome will be, but they go to the polls anyway. Despite this voter willingness, the U.S. needs to be careful about what it calls a successful democratic election in the Middle East. Too many dashed expectations run the risk of creating a generation of disenchanted, cynical ex-voters who thought the candidates, and their Western backers, were going to deliver real goods. The writer is the dean at the School of International Public Affairs at Columbia University.