Islamic Awakening Conference in Tehran

Photo: Senior Iranian clerics at the front row listening to the speech by Iran’s supreme leader at the Islamic Awakening Conference in Tehran, 29 April 2013. (leader.ir/Fars New Agency)

Note: Don’t they seem hard pressed to stay awake at the “Awakening” event?

Khamenei proven right about the Islamic nature of the Arab Spring

Egypt's Islamic parties secure 75 percent of parliament

by Mark Pyruz

The face of Egypt's Islamic electoral majority

According to the Associated Press:

Egypt's election commission and political groups say final results from the country's first elections since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak show Islamist parties winning nearly three-quarters of the seats in parliament.

An alliance led by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood won 47 percent of the spots in the 498-seat parliament, while the ultraconservative Al-Nour Party clinched 25 percent.

Since his speech on February 4, 2011, numerous Western commenters disdainfully rejected Khamenei's remarks referring to the Arab Spring as an "Islamic awakening." Here we have the results of the election in Egypt and they are unmistakeable: Khamenei has been proven correct.

With full control of their country in the hands of the electorate, it can be reliably assumed that Egyptians would seek similar social and political arrangements as those accepted by Iranians in their 1979 referendum, which popularly mandated an Islamic Republic. However the Egyptians have a roadblock in the form of a military junta that retains power. In Iranian terms, it is as if the Nojeh coup had successfully taken place while the Shah fled Iran, forestalling for a time the referendum.

Photo: Associated Press