Why democracy took root in Tunisia and not Egypt
Supporters of the Nida Tunis party listen to speakers at a rally just west of the city in Tunis, Tunisia, Oct 23, 2014. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post) By Fareed Zakaria More than 20 years ago, the scholar Samuel Huntington established his “two-turnover test” for fledgling democracies. A country can be said to be a consolidated democracy, he argued, only when there have been two peaceful transitions of power. This week, with its second parliamentary election, Tunisia passed Huntington’s test. Tunisia’s relative success is a marked contrast to the abysmal failure of Egypt, the Arab world’s largest and once most influential country. As in Tunisia, Egyptians also overthrew a dictator three years ago. But after a brief experiment with democracy, in which the Muslim Brotherhood was elected and then abused its authority, today the country is ruled by a dictatorship . I recently asked a secular, liberal Egyptian from Cairo who was involve...