An update on this story. By Angela Charlton for the Associated Press:
RABAT, Morocco - This could have been the election that ousted Morocco's secular ruling class from power, giving Islamists unprecedented power in a country where Muslim women in T-shirts sip wine on the streets alongside veiled women drinking tea.
Instead, fear of the unknown appeared to trump the anti-corruption, antiestablishment message of the Islamic-leaning Justice and Development Party, or PJD, in Friday's election, with voters handing victory to the secular party close to King Mohamed VI.
Morocco, whose cities are widely tolerant of Western customs, has seen a rise in religious conservatism in recent years that has boosted the PJD's support, especially among the poor and middle class families worried about widespread youth unemployment.
According to preliminary results, the party won 47 of the 325 seats in the lower house of parliament in the vote, five more than it won in the previous election in 2002. It was well short, however, of the 80 seats the party had expected.
Defying predictions, the secular Istiqlal party of the ruling coalition won 52 seats, meaning there likely will be few shifts in the country's direction and ties with the United States will remain strong, analysts said.
Final results were to be announced later Sunday.
"We were modest," Istiqlal leader Abbas el Fassi said. While the PJD was predicting victory before the vote, he said, "We didn't say anything because we are confident and patient to see what the Moroccan people have to say."
[...]
Analysts said that while the pro-Islamic party didn't fare as well as expected, its message was spreading across the North African country of 33 million people.
"Political Islam is still a growing force, even if voters were not as enthusiastic about the PJD as they had wanted," said Mohamed Darif, a professor at Mohammedia University and expert on Islamic groups and extremism.
He said that the PJD's failure to win the election could frustrate hard-line supporters and push them toward more extremist groups.
I would now assume since the Islamists did not win at the ballot box there is but one alternative to that. Need I say what that will be?
Of course these islamists could be like the democrats here in America and say that Bush and Rove somehow stole this election too.
"He said that the PJD's failure to win the election could frustrate hard-line supporters and push them toward more extremist groups." -- from the article
Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
If the PJD had won the election, that would have promoted extremism, too.
Maroccans have access to the Internet, too, and they can discuss on the net in english and french, with Europeans and Americans. May some of them did just that.
If they can't win with the ballot, they will use the bullet. Count on it.
Rust never rests.
Neither does Jihad.
Gonna be some bombs going off in Morocco.
Josephine said: "He said that the PJD's failure to win the election could frustrate hard-line supporters and push them toward more extremist groups." -- from the article
But at least this way they won't be "legitamized" by being elected.
It's difficult for other governments to recognize an islamist government if one didn't get elected. And assistance can be provided to the secular elected government (if they request) in controlling violent islamists in their society.
And they will continue to have islamic violence now that the secular government has won the election.
"Islamists suffer setback in Morocco vote"
I don't remember seeing the "I" word used here before, except when quoting others, of course. How is the term defined here, then? Should it simply be taken to mean "Islamic political party"?
Time for some preaching and combat
Anti-uffe--
That's a fair question. Usually there's a significantly better word; for example, if a given headline says something about "Islamists" attacking something, or "militants," or "radicals," we call them what they are: jihadists.
But we have occasionally let it stay in a headline where it is a decently short way to label a group with a broad pro-Islamic agenda-- two other recent examples:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/017919.php
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/017488.php
That said, we do dodge it more often than not, so your observation is certainly valid.
"Praise God for democracy...I'm glad to see that there are still nations where Muslims have not been completely gripped by the insanity of caliphate-building!!"
Posted by CAIRfreefuture above
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I disagree. This good news had little to do with democracy. In almost every other case: Algeria, Palestine, Turkey, Malaysia, and so on, bringing democracy to Muslims usually elects Islamists.
That the secularist pro-Western Istiqlal squeezed out a narrow victory in this election is due mostly to the positive influence of King Mohamed VI. Morocco's young king mobilized traditional tribal loyalties to the throne to block an Islamist takeover. In essence, these Berber tribal loyalties are pre-Islamic and keep Morroco from following a purely Islamic path.
If we hope to see Morroco remain in the Western camp, we should hope for the continued influence of the monarchy and not the expansion of democracy.