ABSTRACT
The recent victory of Islamic political parties in Egypt seemingly proves the long-held thesis among scholars and experts of the Middle East: if democracy is given to the Middle Eastern countries, Islamic parties will win elections. 1 In fact, long before the Arab Spring came to the region, evidence to support that thesis had already been exposed—starting in Jordan in 1989, when, for the first time in twenty-two years, the country held a parliamentary election. The election, which was held democratically, resulted in the victory of candidates mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood (ikhwan al-Muslimin). Two years later (1991), Algeria followed the trend when the Front Islamique du Salut, a political party with an Islamist ideology, won the election. The Algerian parliament would have been dominated by the Islamists had the military not invalidated the result of the election. Four years later (1995), the Refah Party won the general election in Turkey. Refah was the largest Islamic political party that could successfully challenge Turkish secular politics.
