 All right, ladies and gentlemen, I think we will get started. We have a fascinating group here. We are talking about revolution, change, reform, democracy, all these currents in the Middle East. To give you a sense of how dynamic this world is, we did a similar panel. In fact, a similar panel in this very room, I think it was about on this day, the last Davos. And four of the five people who are on the panel are no longer in government. At least in the old days, they wouldn't be alive or they'd be in jail. Not none of that is true, but the Egyptian prime minister, who spoke very eloquently, he's gone. We had Salman Fayyad from the Palestinian Authority. He's gone and so on. So I hope this is not a sign for the Chief Minister of Morocco because he's the only one left standing. And if in two months he's not in government anymore, then you will know that we will call this the Curse of Davos. What I thought we'd talk about is really we have an extraordinary opportunity here. Because we have people who are both in government and have held critical positions in political parties. And then we have people who can speak about these issues more broadly. Here's the puzzle I think we have all been trying to figure out. In the Middle East, it appears as though the region was strapped between two dynamics. The first dynamic was that you had essentially military regimes or dictatorships in many of the large countries in the Middle East. And these dictatorships were producing a certain amount of discontent and opposition. And this opposition was turning into an Islamist opposition for a variety of reasons, one of which was this is the one activity that you cannot ban in a Middle Eastern country. And so the mosque became the place where people could gather. Islam became the speech that was permissible and the speech therefore that was used as the language of opposition. By the way, a similar process took place in Latin America in the 1980s with liberation theology. But then on the other hand, what you found was the Islamist movements were sometimes, in some cases, I want to be clear, not very interested in democracy and the rule of law and all those aspects of deeper constitutionalism and democracy. And so it seemed as though the region was strapped. On the one hand, it had these dictatorships. On the other hand, it had what I have called illiberal democracies as opposed to liberal democracies. And if you think about the people we have here, they are so perfectly qualified to speak from the highest levels about these dilemmas. Amar Musa, who has been at the absolute center of the Egyptian drama, both having served with great distinction in the old regime, having been a part of the transition, having thought about actually running for president. We have the chief of the government of Morocco, a country that has steered a path of reform that has been inclusive but not revolutionary. We have Rashid Ghanoushi, who is the head of really a party that I'm going to leave it to him to characterize. But some people would describe it as an Islamist party. And I would be interested to know how he would himself describe it. And Mr. Esebsi, who is the head of one of the oldest secular parties in Tunisia. So let me start with you, Amar Musa, because I think that many people are distressed with what has happened in Egypt because there is a feeling that, yes, the Muslim Brotherhood may have overstepped its bounds. It may have governed badly. But there is a remedy for that, which is to be voted out of office. But that instead what took place was a non-democratic remedy. I'm not going to call it by one word or the other, because I don't want to get into silly debate about the word coup. And the question, I think, is what message does this send to the forces of political Islam? Because what I worry about in Egypt is for 30 or 40 years, the Muslim Brotherhood did not engage in violence and said that it wanted a democratic path and a nonviolent path to politics. When Egypt had its transition, it ran for elections. And in one year, it won three elections. The Constitution, the Presidency, and the Parliament. And what has happened is its leaders are in jail. There is constant police roundups of its members. Its people have gone underground. And I would imagine that the jihadi elements in Egyptian society are saying to the Brotherhood, you see, we always told you, don't go for democracy. The only way you can fight these people is with violence. And of course, we are seeing violence from that side. So what is the political strategy to deal with this dilemma in Egypt? Well, look, Farid, you started your intervention with talking about dictatorship and a liberal democracy, illiberal democracy. Dictatorship led to the revolutions of January 2011 in Egypt, in Tunisia, and other. Only to move from dictatorship to illiberal democracy, another dictatorship. Muslim Brotherhood won the three elections, as you say. But they also embarked on a non-democratic path by decrees that give the president or the regime all the powers they need, contrary to what even their constitution has stipulated. This was the beginning of a very angry period against the rule. Therefore, it is not a democratic regime that has fallen. It is a regime that was moving steadily towards dictatorship, involving engaging the religion. So they were putting the religion, Islam, in a very awkward position, because they were the promoter of Islam, supposedly Muslim Brotherhood. So what did they do? The first important decree was to give the president all the powers he needs against all democratic principles. OK, there came the revolution. You call it coup, call it as you like. It was a revolution against their rule, their rule that has brought nothing, no progress whatsoever. And don't forget that Egypt is a country in distress, a country in a very difficult position. So when you bring a regime, granted, he was voted in, Mr. Morsi. But he acted and reacted in a way that has angered the majority of Egyptians. So the revolution, the demonstrations, the anger that has been expressed by millions of people on the 30th of June, the year 2013, added that that means a revolution against dictatorship and a revolution against a liberal democracy that has become almost another dictatorship. So there is no difference between both. And both of them, in fact, brought Egypt to a position of bankruptcy, of economic hardship, of social tension, of failure in dealing with all the files that have to do with our society. Now, you are talking about our path. It is clear that we found that this democratically elected president was acted against democracy and moving to have the helm of Egypt in the hands of a few Maktab al-Irshad, the organization, their organization. Instead of that, we offered with a large or huge majority of the consensus of the people to have a roadmap. And the roadmap is simple and clear. First, a constitution. And we have done it. Second, elections. And the Constitution stipulates that elections should take place within six months of the adoption of the Constitution. Meaning, from last Saturday, six months by the day, according to the Constitution, a constitutional commitment that all elections, parliamentary and presidential, should be finished by end of June, beginning of July. This is the thing that we are bringing democracy back without all the other dreams or plans or politics that commanded no consensus, especially by Muslim Brotherhood. As I was telling my friends and brothers here, that we opposed them, opposed Mr. Morsi, and the people brought him down. Not because he was representing Muslim Brotherhood, but because he presided over an extremely inefficient regime. With a country in distress, we couldn't have afforded that. Had the country been in a normal situation, as you were saying, all right, let us wait. Perhaps the next elections will remove them. But a country in a situation where we are today, we cannot afford to lose one day. So we need to move quickly. That's why the roadmap came. That is why we are putting limits, a maximum date that we have to finish all this by. Now we expect that by June next, we'll have all institutions in place by elections and then resume our work towards democracy, which was in fact very much adversely affected by the work of the Muslim Brotherhood one year in government. This is what we intend to do. And this constitution does not exclude, does not isolate, does not prevent any citizen from running for presidential elections or parliamentary elections, contrary to the constitution of the Muslim Brotherhood, which excluded, which prevented, prohibited, so many of the officials of the regime before them from enjoying their rights as citizens. We avoided that. Therefore, any Egyptian citizen being from Muslim Brotherhood or any other current religion, any social affiliation, all citizens are equal. They have that right. We did not ban that. The constitution does not ban their own party. Their own party still works. So if they want, they can decide to get back. Here comes my final point. It is not a question of asking the government, only the government, that we are trying to build, to rebuild, what are we going to do with the Muslim Brotherhood? Ask them. Ask Muslim Brotherhood. What are you going to do with the society? Are you going to work within the confines of the constitution? Are you ready to be forces of objective, positive forces in the society or not? The question has to be addressed to them as it is addressed to the government. I'm not in the government. I can say that the government does not do everything perfectly or they make mistakes. Definitely they make mistakes. I disagree or disagree. But the fact remains that terrorizing the society is not a good policy. If Muslim Brotherhood, not necessarily, that they accuse them of each and every accident or incident that takes place, but definitely after what we have seen in so many areas, so many places, so many, that terrorism has to come to an end. Any society that wants to live in peace and stability will not accept what they are doing, will not accept their point of view. Forget about the incident, will not accept that. We are ready and the constitution gives them all the rights to get back to the political arena. Field candidates, if you wish. Get the majority in the parliament, if you can. Have a presidential candidate for presidential elections. The road is open for you. But to say no and insist that we get back to June 29th, this is, it doesn't happen. It is impossible. People will not accept it. People are angry and people have seen them in action. Yes, indeed. They were persecuted, they were so and so. But when they got the seat of government, they mishandled everything. We are not ready to be subjected to such an experience once more, especially that our country is in deep distress until this moment. Let me ask Rashid Danilchi. If you would comment on this Egyptian experience and tell me what lessons you drew and what do you think of it? I speak myself in Arabic. That's OK. The most important lesson to be taken from the Egyptian experience is that we have to avoid emulating it because this path has been tested, the path of military coup and accusing the people that it is not mature because it has elected a group and not another. There is a general who gives himself the right to defy the will of the people. And he says, you have followed the wrong path and I will impose on you by force the right path. The consequences of this path were very tough for the Arab world. This democracy or democracy in general is a system that humans establish and humans can make mistakes. Democracy has amongst its meanings a mechanism to correct mistakes. I am not defending the performance of the Muslim brotherhood on the economic or social level, but I am defending principles here. No one should give himself the right or no group should give itself the right to defy the will of the people and to go beyond elections or election results. The Arab world does not need a similar experience. The path of coups is a wrong path and it only leads to catastrophes. Isolation and marginalization are useless. Unfortunately, Mr. Amr Musa is defending a cause that cannot be defended. Sorry, please do not interrupt me. I allowed you to speak and you cannot prevent me from speaking, please. Mr. Amr Musa says, I will comment later on what you have just said. Yes, but please be patient, says Mr. Vanouchi. Yes, I can be very patient, says Mr. Amr Musa. So I was saying that democracy is established by human beings who can commit mistakes and there are internal mechanisms for correction and improvement. Let's go back now to Tunisia. We in Tunisia have embarked on a revolution that has had repercussions in the whole Arab region, especially in Egypt, because of the big similarities between the Egyptian and the Tunisian societies, since they are both urban societies, mainly and not tribal societies or sectarian societies. They are mostly urban societies. Hence, the first response to the Tunisian revolution was in Egypt. Obviously, there were differences later on if we get into details. There is a difference between the structure of the Tunisian society. The Tunisian society is a society where there are no radical disparities or contradictions. It is a more homogeneous society. Most of the people are Muslims. Hence, it was natural that the revolution would start in Tunis. This revolution has had a bet on democracy, and it was a revolution against isolation, against dictatorship, and the absence of social benefits. It has not excluded anyone. Islamists in Tunisia were voted for not because they were active in mosques, because mosques were under the control of the Ben Ali regime. But the Islamists had been the biggest victims of the former regimes, the regimes of Burkiba and of Ben Ali. Hence, the people has given them a chance. But this is an opportunity whereby Islamists are under control and scrutiny. We have considered since the beginning that the Tunisian society, in spite of its homogeneity, but it is plural on the intellectual level. That's why we have tried to gather various groups. We at NAHDA, we consider ourselves to be a democratic Islamic party. We do not have the monopoly of Islam. All the Tunisians are Muslim. So we do not have a monopoly of Islam. We consider ourselves as having great respect for the Islamic authority, as a values authority, a source of justice, peace, coexistence, sacrifice. The Troika system was established since the beginning based on a coalition between Islamists and secularists, because this is the nature of our society. We have a diverse society. And the normal democracy of 51% is not enough. Maybe this is a difference between Egypt and Tunisia. That government in Tunisia was based since the beginning, based on a coalition between Islamists and secularists. And we are still sticking to this coalition even after the coming elections. In the light of this transitional democracy, 51% will not be enough. All intellectual movements have to be represented. Yesterday in Tunisia there was a historic event. We have adopted the constitution. And the constitution included the recognition of public freedoms and the balance between powers, equal sharing between powers. And it has given great importance to local governance because we consider that the closer democracy gets to people, the better governance is. And the further we go from dictatorship, the biggest danger would be the comeback of dictatorship in whatever form it would be. We, the Islamists, have governed with two secular parties for two years. And we are currently about to leave power. We leave power also in an unusual way. We still have quasi-majority at the parliament. We appreciate that the majority of the people is still supporting us. Why did we leave power without elections? We did that because we felt we have two opportunities. Either we stay in power and we lose democracy or we gain democracy and we give up power. Since the opposition has withdrawn from the parliament and they said, we will not come back to the parliament until Anahdha would resign or the government would resign. We do not want to have a constitution without the participation of the opposition. We want the opposition to get back to the parliament. We do not want to have a constitution for Anahdha alone. We want a constitution that would represent all Tunisians. This is why we sacrificed our presence in the government so as to pursue putting Tunisia on the path of democracy. Today, Tunisia has a constitution. It has an independent elections assembly elected by the parliament. Now, Tunisia, thanks to national dialogue, could elect president of an independent government who will lead a technocrat government. Tunisia today is on the way of democracy with a great sacrifice since we left the government for the public interest. And we appreciate this Tunisian model. We can talk today about a Tunisian model that is incorporated by this coalition that is still valid even after the incoming elections, which are probably to be held at the end of summer. This model is based on an alliance between Islamists and secularists. It is based on reaffirming local governance, the distribution of powers at the widest level. This alliance, this Tunisian model, is based on the principle of agreement and not the normal majority, usually in a democracy. 51% are enough for you to govern, but in a democracy, in a transitional phase, 51% is not enough. Even 60% acquired by one party are not enough. We need a coalition, an alliance. We want an alliance between Islamists and secularists and to have all these components available. Now we are seeing through very clearly, we are seeing that Tunisia is heading towards elections at the end of this year, at the end of the summer. We think that the world will witness a model of Tunisian democracy that could shed some light in the skies of the Arab world, which still constitutes, hence, an exception. But we want to put an end to what is called the Arab exception. We want to say that Arabs, like any others, are capable of enjoying democracy. Tunisia is a small country. If it could offer something to the world, then it could offer this cultural achievement, this model for peaceful democratic transformation. Thank you for your attention. Mr. Assebsi, let me ask you. You've heard this debate in a sense. What do you think? I will also be speaking in Arabic. First, I will not comment on what Mr. Ghanoushi said regarding Egypt. I do not agree with him on that. But let's talk about Tunisia. Without explaining why, you owe him the honor of explaining why you disagree with him. I will answer then. But originally, I didn't want to answer about this issue. What has happened in Egypt is that there were elections, honest elections, which have given a majority to a candidate. But elections are not a blank check that you give a candidate to do whatever he wants. From what we learned from the news, this candidate followed a different policy other than the one for which he was elected. So the Egyptian people is the one that revolted against that. So those who went in the streets were 30 million, which means that he was no longer representing the people. Obviously, every country has its own specificities, but we cannot blame officials in Egypt for not leaving the country in chaos and bloodshed and confrontation. It is not our right maybe to give an opinion on that and the Egyptians have to decide. Why do you think Tunisia has avoided this path and had a more successful transition? Regarding Tunisia, the revolution occurred in Tunisia. It started in Tunisia, and the revolution was started by the Tunisian youth, not only Islamists or non-Islamists. Of course, they wanted the fall of the dictatorship. They wanted to topple the regime, and this has happened within 29 days. The main claims were freedom and dignity, which means that after a dictatorship, the people want to have a rule of law and sound governance. So maybe people could disagree sometimes in defining democracy. But here we established a transition government, and its objective was to lead the country to elections. We organized elections, and the elections we organized were constituting elections. Why? Because we consider that democracy cannot be reflected upon other than within the rule of law. And we were not in a state where the rule of law prevailed. This is why we decided to hold elections to have a constituent assembly that would guarantee the constitution. And we assigned this constituent assembly with the task of working on a constitution within a year. During the elections, the Islamists or Anahdha got a relative majority. But when they came to the first meeting of the constituent assembly, it seems that they didn't want a lot enough time to work on a constitution, but they wanted more to govern. And governing is something else. And they gave themselves the right to change the formula of elections from elections of a constituent assembly to elections of a legislative assembly and that they were outside the law as I see things personally. And I'm not the only one to have this approach. So when they came to power, what was their priority? It was not to promote democracy or to push the country towards progress and development or democracy. Their main objective was to change the image of the Tunisian society, to Islamize the society. But we are Muslims. No one can say they are more Muslim than us. But we consider that Tunisia has witnessed various experiences for more than 50 years. And we have dealt with the issue of identity. The first chapter of the 59 constitutions stipulates that Tunisia is a free, independent sovereign state. Islam is its religion. Arabic is its language. And the Republic is its regime and system. We consider that this is enough. And that's why we came back now to this chapter after many confrontations. I do not like all the time to talk about the past or to blame others. I like to talk about the future. I think today we have moved in a positive step. And after the failure of confrontational attempts, after the failure of imposing a certain social pattern by force, we all resorted to dialogue. We have embraced this dialogue. And I am one of the people who are proud to have established dialogue with Mr. Ghanoushi. And I convinced him that the best thing for all of us is to embrace dialogue. That's what we all did. And this is how we could face the problems. The Anahdha government then decided to resign. They promised to resign. And they respected their promise. We agreed to have a government presided by an independent person whose members would be skilled people technocrats. Tomorrow this will be announced. Hopefully, the person we chose to preside the government will stick to the roadmap. We will judge him later, obviously. Anahdha is not out of power. It's out of the government. It is true. But it remained in the constituent assembly. It still has a great influence in the constituent assembly. And I think and I hope that it will stick to its promises. It has exerted lots of efforts that are to be recognized. And today we have come to a agreed constitution. This would have not been thought to be possible some time ago. And we can say with great satisfaction and gratitude that we could reach this consensual constitution. Hopefully we will keep working all together on this path. I was asked a while ago, what do you think would be the future of Islamists in Tunisia? What I can say is that the only future is with the national unity. Outside there is no future for them or for any other. Thank you. I think it is often said about Arabs that they are very eloquent. And you can see this by the fact that we have not even finished the first round of first questions. And my time is up for the panel discussion. We are meant to move to questions. But I'm going to ask the chief minister of Morocco, Abdullah bin Kiran, what are your reflections on how Morocco has chosen a path of what some people have called moderate reform? How do you propose to allow Islamists, people who believe that their political parties or their political values should be influenced by Islam? What kind of role will they be allowed in Morocco as you go forward? Because I know that the reform is an ongoing process. Thank you. In the name of God, the merciful, the beneficent, I do not want to enter into matters of state. Each state knows better its own circumstances. It's people. However, it is necessary when we meet in such gatherings. And I attended such a gathering last year, as Mr. Zakaria said, with some of our brothers who are no longer holding positions in the government. And maybe he means next year it will be our turn to be ousted from the government. But that is not important. What is important is that a human or an organization or a state goes forward. We have Islamic populations that include the Muslims, the Christians, the Jews. But this has been the characteristic of our peoples and populations for a long time. And now we have what we call the concept of democracy. And these peoples believed in their circumstances without thinking that democracy will confront their circumstances. Maybe this is a new way of looking at a concept that has been already indicated in the Quran and the Shura. And of course, there is nothing called Islamist. And there are no secularists. There are kinds and types of Islamist and secularists and different kinds of dictators. But the people like clarity. If we told them that democracy and they believed in it and went to the elections and chose those they would like to see in government, I believe that it is their right to see whether what they believed in does go in the direction they want. Otherwise, we will have difficulty in explaining things that are difficult to explain to our people. And people have a right to ask. Do they have the destiny in their hands? For example, the Syrian people, the Syrian people, just as the Tunisian and Egyptian people, they demonstrated. And in other societies, we saw changes from dictatorships to other parts. The Syrian people today doesn't see such a path available. And the result is that hundreds of thousands, I do not know whether we have reached a million, I don't know, maybe, of dead people and millions of displaced people. These people who believe in democracy, who would like, have they been disillusioned? In French, we say an ingredient, a component. Do you need such components or constituents in your democracy support from the West, from the United States? So where is the will of the people in all this process? The defeat of people or having people feel depressed leads to negative aspects for them and for others. And for this reason, I would like, and before you, to congratulate our brothers and sisters in Tunisia, whether we are speaking about the party that is headed by Mr. Sebsi or the party that is headed by Mr. Rashid Ghanoushi or others, because maybe through a path that is not very familiar in the world of democracy, they chose a path through the will of a major party that accepted to abandon government because it believed. And I am optimistic that things will go ahead positively. They hoped that our brothers and sisters in Egypt will also manage to achieve positive progress. As for us in Morocco, our attempt when we witnessed the Arab Spring, the Moroccan people also went out into the streets. But maybe in a lesser importance, maybe because the consequences of dictatorship has had less of an impact in our country. And in all honesty, not because I'm head of a government, but because his highness, the king, and after 20 or less than 20 days from the demonstrations of the Moroccan Morocco, he made a speech where he responded to the needs of the political parties, whether this had to do with democracy or the competences of the head of the government or human rights or basic freedoms and the Moroccan people responded positively. And that is proof that people are wise and understand the interest and to respond through the constitution and then through elections. And his highness, the king, gave his orders so that he could ensure positive results, which led to the party I had to rule government and which gave birth to the government I'm heading and even last year, as though there was a contagious disease from one region to another, there were those who were requesting that our government give way to another government. But his highness, the king, acted wisely. And there was a problem at the level of one party, one political party. And now we are in the second government. And in all honesty, we are moving from good to better. So we have different scenarios. What is important is that people believe and feel that matters are natural and in harmony with their original belief. Otherwise, they lose confidence. As for the foundations of a state, the king said, the trust. And we could sacrifice money and we can't sacrifice trust because if we lose trust, then the door is open to the unknown. And I therefore believe that we should never lose an opportunity. We should always think of two things. Discarding anyone should never take place. I don't think there's any party that can discard any other party that was born within the society. Secondly, whether we're speaking of Islamists or secularists or the communists or liberals, they have understand why the people elected them as Mr. Assebsi was it so that we regain our Islam? We are Muslims. We never abandoned our religion. No, we elected you even though you declared you are a party that has its Islamic references. We have problems in education, in finding jobs, in finding homes, and security, crime, and transportation. Some problems might be modest, but they are still very important. Transportation is a problem from which millions of people in the Arab world are suffering day and night, and many other problems. So if everyone carries out his duty as is appropriate, and developments can take place in a logical way, but not by the use of force solely, because force will ultimately not give positive results. Thank you. We have achieved the Davos record. I believe that there is no time for questions. All that is left for me to do is to thank the panelists and to hope that you enjoyed getting this very rich and full airing of the various perspectives in the Middle East.