similar results are widely expected in libya and jordan late they are year. the rise of islamist parties is a reality, and the decisions they make will powerfully shape the future for years to come. we convene this conference because, in spite of their growing power, islamist parties remain poorly understood in washington and in other key capitals outside the region. many leaders -- many islamist leaders have never served in government and have had only limited contact with the west, and their rise to power has provoked a great deal of uncertainty, even trepidation among policymakers. they release aease autocrats, w while brutally oppressive, were at least known quantities. and so we felt it would be enormously valuable to bring together both sides of this new

equation for an overdue conversation. our hope for today is for candor and a pointed exchange of views. we invite everyone to listen carefully and to ask tough questions. the arab world, after all, faces major challenges. after decades of repression and stagnation. with islamist parties poised to enter power for the first time, we have questions. how strong a role will religion play in governing? will individual freedoms be protected? will islamist parties respect the outcome of future elections no matter who wins? on the economic front, what do islamist parties plan to do to reduce unemployment and to spur growth? what sort of business environment do they plan to

create? our panels today are designed to address all of these questions and more. they are meant to provide emerging leaders from the region a chance to share their views with an expert audience on how they intend to govern, and at the same time they're meant to provide washington -- western policymakers a chance to listen and also to ask probing questions. we are at carnegie both proud and i think -- to be able to host this event and uniquely equipped to have done so. we operate one of the arab world's leading think tanks, the carnegie middle east center in beirut, with scholars and staff from across the region. we operate and publish all our work in both arabic and english, and we focus our analysis and research on issues of political reform, economic reform, demackdemack

ry -- democratization. when we launched the carnegie vision five years ago to create the world's first global think tank, we did so with an ambition to connect a global audience with local expertise, local voices from the world's most critical region, and that is precisely what we're doing here today. i want just to thank a few people and individuals who made the day possible. marw marwan, rina, and ne al sidani from carnegie staff who have worked for untold hours to pull this audience together, and the swiss government, the open society institute, and hinrich, who have made today's conference possible through their generous financial support. the carnegie endowment is deeply

grateful to all of them. and most importantly, i want to thank all of you for joining us. a day like this, obviously, depends on the -- on those who have traveled in some cases great distances to join us, and we are particularly grateful to them. and we are delighted to have all of you here for what i think will be an important day from which we will all leave the wiser. so with that said, it's my pleasure to turn the floor over to the head of our middle east program, marwan, who is moderating this first panel. welcome and enjoy your day. [ applause ] >> thank you very much, jessica. before we start, let me just take care of some administrative, logistical issues. i want to remind everybody, please, if they can have their cell phones off and to use your translation machines, you have

to turn to 6 for english and 8 for arabic. that should be easy. okay. we're starting the first session with building new regimes after the uprising. and to do that, we have with us the representatives from four arab country, two of which have undergone transitions, egypt and tunis tunisia, and two others who are trying to put in place a process of reform from above in order to avoid transitions such as what happened in tunisia and egypt and put in place political process morocco and jordan. and we're going to hear from all of them. their cvs are included with you, but let me just briefly introduce mr. mustafaa al haffi,

minister of the communications in the new government. to my immediate right, head of the international relations of the muslim brotherhood in jordan. to my immediate left is dr. albin, member of parliament from the freedom of justice party in egypt. and to my far left is a member of the constituent assembly in tunis from tanother party. many questions are, of course, on everybody's mind. as we go through these transitions, the question of pluralism and the peaceful rotation of power, rights of women and minorities, personal rights, the constitution process of course is a process that will be done by consensus or by majority is what is being built and how would either look. what are the economic programs

of the islamist parties that are coming up. what are these programs -- what do yay thai like like. what does an islamist state look like. what does employing islamic principles in government mean. will sharia be the only source of legislation, and would sharia laws be imposed on all citizens. and if an islamic state, as jessica said, through persuasion, are citizens allowed to change their minds and vote islamists out, or would it be a one-way street. these questions and more i think are on everybody's minds. the islamists are being held to a high standard as they appear to be winning in all arab countries. i think these questions also need to be asked from secular parties as well as islamist

parties. converting to pluralism is something it is hoped would be a trait of all parties in the arab world working for pluralism and not just expected of islamist parties. so what i thought we would do is start with the countries that have gone -- undergone transitions. we start with tunisia, because it was the first. we move the egypt and see what experience the egyptians have. and then we talk about morocco and jordan as two countries, two monarchies that have not undergone transitions and are trying to put in a process from above. and i thought what we would do is i would ask questions of you, but please feel free to add anything you want. and limit your interventions to no more than 10 to 15 minutes. we have a large number of people in the room. i'm sure all of them are interested in hearing your views and in asking questions. so i hope we can limit the initial remarks to about ten

minutes each. and i start and ask about the transition process in tunisia today, how is it going, do you feel confident that a pluralistic society is put in place, and how would you characterize the transition that is going on in tunisia so far? >> translator: the carnegie endowment, i thank for this invitation, and for their efforts in conducting this dialogue. islamic pride is rising, and we are discussing the islamic performance in the field of individual freedoms and

pluralism and the freedom of belief, expression is fundamental and basic issues that have to be clarified to everybody so that we are able to establish a true democratic system that would guarantee these freedoms and provide society that is deep rooted in freedom. these islamist parties need the relationship between islamic values and month tern ti issues. i say that we want peaceful revolution. in tunisia, the revolution was not violent. the first thing that was brought was the transformation by

violence. they also dropped the concept of fear from dictatorship and also the method of change of violence. in addition to this peaceful and civilized efforts by this, we were quickly able to organize free elections that were transparent and fair for the first time in the arab world. when i say the arab world, i mean that it's the first time elections were held to express the will of the people through the ballot boxes without forgery of the will of the people. it was a peaceful, civil revolution, free, democratic, transparent election, and in a short period of time we were able to build a regime, a system that has the beginning of constitutionality and constitutional assembly, now

includes all parties in society, political parties, islamists, liberals, leftists, nationalists, pluralism and constitutional assembly, which reflects the reality of the tunisian society and vakt of the parties. also, in a short period of time, we were able to draft a small constitution, and then a regulation to govern tunisia for three years so that we can build a democrat system that will be based on freedom and democracy. within this system, we have elected the chairman of the assembly and the president, and then we formed a government. most importantly about this government is it's a national

coalition that combined another movement and grouping, but also the republican party, which is a liberal party. this combination combined islamis and leftists and liberals and nationalists in one government. this perhaps is what i considered an element of strength, meaning that we have -- we have ended the rule of one party as we ended dictatorship. and now we are -- we also started drafting a constitution, a new constitution. now we form ed six committee s. the committees for freedoms and the committee for the

relationship between legislative and executive branches and a committee to start thinking about the regional governance. we were all within the constitutional framework. we went on reconciliation national agreement. we think that this constitution represents all tunisians and all the people with the goals of the revolution in tunisia. the method in which we will draft this constitution is by consensus and to be geared toward expanding the consensus among the people by all parties, particularly from another movement. we have the majority. it is a proportionate representation in accordance of the size of the different

parties represented. so the committees, the parties are represented greatly, so we were careful to build on very basic things in the constitution, and that is the islamic nature of the state in. in tunisia, this meets the agreement of all the parties. so islam and other would be the main foundations. and the main thing, also, is is to guarantee individual freedoms. there's discussion about the l fight over the regime, whether it will be a republican system or a different system. there should be a constitutional court that will monitor

application of all laws enacted. and there should be -- careful to have a higher committee that will oversee all elections that will not be related to the ministry of the interior or any other, but will be a chit tee that will oversee also the information sector, so -- and there will also will be the watchdog to maintain neutrality of the judicial system. so we'll have also an independent commission that will organize the information and the media in tunisia so that that will be a guarantee that the dictatorship will never be returned back to tunisia. so this is a great gain in tunisia. so there is a commission for personal status in which the

women in tunisia have gained a lot. so the revolution as we go was built on the shoulders of young people and women. so -- we adopt a civil state, a republic regime, democratic system, and our vision is a fum thing as a mechanism to conduct a dialogue in the state and in society. so we see this as a democratic method that is not different from ashura, but it would be a measurement to employ and adopt. so there is no difference

between democracy and islam. perhaps we can -- deep root democracy within islam in a very sound manner. we consider that there is no contradiction between islam and democracy and no contradiction between the values of islam and humanitarian gains and what was gained by the human mind in the modern societies that had emanated from outside the arab/islamic domain. so there is agreement between islam and all these points. within islam, respect the rights of minorities, the christians and jewish minorities are very small, but they are accepted

within the society. we don't have any sectarian strife between the different religions. all the minority religious groups enjoy their rights as everybody else. we are careful to respect the individual freedoms, the public freedoms, to respect the freedoms of women and the rights of minorities and all the parties agree on the values of citizenship on -- based on -- founded on islam and this meets consensus in europe. so recently, we have presented the idea of constructing the constitution based on al sharia.

so the legal reference for the constitution would be the islamic sharia. there is another project that talks about talks about a free country, islam and arabic, it's the language, the movement, of course thashs tht s a political, the political divisions and there is no need to -- so there was a great discussion in that region, and there were -- the basis of the discussions are demands to include sharia in the constitution, but there are other movements that consider that this will divide and split

the society and the sharia law is kind of confusing and not understood and so we oppose justice and freedom and the main ideas of religion is to maintain the religion and to have all the main points of religion. there are lots of scholars who talked about this freedom and justice as fundamental pillars of islam. so this is one scholar who wrote about sharia, and he said, had stated that sharia democracy -- and we have confusing points

about-- that it is it calls for polygamy and but there -- and it's looked upon as unjust and -- so and although that we decided to postpone the issue in the first stages that was accepted by all the parties, and we have bypassed this debate and in regarding this situation we will be so far as in the first chapter of the constitution by excluding sharia as a fundamental issue that should be based on. so we also are careful to combine all the society on common denominators and as i said there are many that in a public system, whether it's --

the relationship between the societies, which guarantees a woman's rights, we adopt these things and accept them. also, the freedom of the press and the media. these are a group that the movement sees how they can build the constitution in a way that will build and renew the public system that will be based on the administration and the freedom of belief and expression, and coercion should be not employed, not necessarily -- especially in religi religion, no coercion, also and the choice of individual for their way of living.

these are fundamental issues. there are also other challenges in which the government now faces. we have -- we want to expand the governing base to -- so now the government has submitted a huge program that includes political and security aspects. so these are the main priorities in the society and, of course, employment is a top priority so that we will have to work on supporting and enhancing domestic and foreign investments. of course, the previous regime had created a chism between different parts of the society.

so 80% of growth was the interior. there was minimal. so now the new government has changed the situation by being more active for provincial sdwech developed and safety and security enhanced also. these are the traditional justice now is a big challenge. how can we carry on reconciliation and accountability? so we have -- and this period we will adopt a law that will discuss the transitional justice where we talk about a number of issues, such as negotiation and other things that will all be employed with the context of

nobody should be above the law. this is a number of challenges that we face economically and, of course, in the political arena, how can we manage this period by consensus and through dialogue and how can we combine all the different parties? we believe what had happened in tunisia has been good so far, and we, the army in tunisia, had played a positive role in the earlier days of the revolution. the army could have taken charge of the country, but they supported the revolution, and protected the people from the forces and also worked on protecting and safeguarding the elections to be free of fraud. so there is dialogue now with

the commanders and leadership of the army and the government. we believe that the army led positively and served the authority -- there is cooperation with the military establishment. we want to build a state -- that will not -- be kind of -- i mean, a ruler would not be getting his sanctity from events in power, but, rather would be from the people for taking care of the people's interests, and so it will not be a military

governed state. it will be a civil society. this is a number of issues that i had tried to briefly mention to you. i would welcome any questions to present you any clarifications about the situation in tunisia and about the position. >> thank you. >> thank you very much for this presentation of what is going on in tunis. talk about some key concepts, i think that many people would like to hear in this audience and beyond. he talked about the pluralistic political assembly, coalition government, the consensus, writing the constitution through a consensus process rather than by the majority. a civil state.

sharia not being the only source of legislation. individual rights, women's rights. all these are, of course, very important concepts as we build a new state in tunisia. how do we compare this to what is going on in egypt? egypt is facing some difficulty even for the group to write the constitution. yesterday the muslim brotherhood presidential candidate declared that implementing the sharia remains the number one objective. how do you match that against what we heard from tunisia and what you know, own program states in egypt? >> translator: in the name of god, the merciful, i would li like --