Arab Executives Predict Regime Change in Egypt-NYT 1/29 : 스위스 다보스 포럼에서 예상하는 향후 이집트와 아랍의 정치상황 전망

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By LIZ ALDERMAN

DAVOS, Switzerland — The unrest engulfing Egypt caught business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum off guard, but it became the hottest topic among the Arab elite here. Most of those leaders tuned in to the dramatic events from iPads and BlackBerrys and huddled to debate how the uprising would affect the rest of the Arab world.

“It’s all anyone’s talking about,” said Sheik Mohammed bin Essa al-Khalifa of Bahrain, who leads the nation’s economic development board and participated in many of the discussions.

For the most part, the consensus was that President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt would not easily relinquish his authoritarian grip, an outcome that became more evident as he named Omar Suleiman, the country’s intelligence chief and a close ally, as his vice president on Saturday.

But the drive for change from tens of thousands of protesters meant that a near monarchical regime cloaked in democracy would inevitably end, Arab executives here concluded.

“People are saying that Gamal Mubarak doesn’t have a chance of succeeding his father,” said one businessman who insisted on anonymity, referring to Mr. Mubarak’s son. “It’s a matter of when it will end, not if,” he said.

The events in Egypt were hardly mentioned during the forum’s official programs, although a few leaders issued brief statements of concern before turning to other topics.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan opened a speech Saturday citing the “unstable situation” in Egypt, with which Japan has had a long relationship. He called on the government not to delay a dialogue with protesters, and to speed reforms “that could immediately restore political stability and civil life.”

A day earlier, as Egypt’s army took to the streets, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany hastily convened a briefing to urge Mr. Mubarak not to lock people up or reduce access to information in an effort to stabilize the situation.

Further acts of repression in any Arab country, together with a shortage of jobs, were likely to fan growing waves of unrest, especially across poorer states, many executives here said.

Few of them expected a revolution to spread across the oil-rich nations of the Gulf and the United Arab Emirates, where the governments are monarchies, which often do not create the types of expectations that accompany a democracy. Rulers in these countries use their oil wealth to invest in social stability by ensuring their own people lead comfortable lives through subsidies on things like electricity, education and food.

“Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries are going to be spared because they are not democratic regimes,” said Jamal Khashoggi, the general manager of Al Waleed 24 News Channel. People there “don’t feel cheated because there are no elections,” he said. By contrast, he said, “I can feel the agony of an Egyptian when he sees how democracy is mocked.”

On Thursday, the Saudi prince Turki al-Faisal al-Saud had this answer when asked whether a wave of democracy across the Middle East might be even more destabilizing than a nuclear Iran: “I don’t know; in Saudi Arabia, we have neither nuclear weapons nor democracy.”

One question mark, some Arab executives said, may be Bahrain, the smallest economy in the Emirates and a developing democracy. It lacks the oil wealth of many of its neighbors, and has moved to diversify its economy, invest heavily in education, and create an unemployment safety net, the only one in the region. Shiites outnumber the Sunni population, which lost control of Parliament in elections last October.

For some, however, the situation is not comfortable enough. “People think that we should follow this nanny state mentality of the government subsidizing everything,” said Sheik Mohammed of the Bahrain economic development board, who noted that Kuwait had just paid $3,000 to every Kuwaiti citizen to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its independence.

“They don’t want to let go of electricity subsidies or other subsidies,” he said of people in Bahrain. “But those who benefit most are members of Parliament, the business community, decision makers and to some extent, the press, which comes out against reforms,” he said.

Instead, his country is funneling former subsidy money toward advanced education and the creation of jobs — one of the most important ingredients for social stability in the Arab world, where vast numbers of young people in particular are hampered by soaring levels of unemployment.

“What counts is jobs,” Sheik Mohammed said. “This is not just a problem in the Arab world; it’s a global issue that’s hitting the United States and Europe too.”

At the same time, protesters should be wary of thinking that all revolutions lead to democracies and immediate economic stability, said Mustapha Kamel Nabli, the central bank governor of Tunisia, whose leaders fled from office last week during an upheaval that quickly fanned the unrest in Egypt.

“It’s not just by having democracy that jobs will be created,” he said. “It’s a gradual process.”

Until then, the more pressing question is what type of leader is likely to step into any power vacuum. The Arab executives here played down fears, preval‎ent among Western observers, that extremists or conservative Islamic factions would fill the breach.

“That’s a red herring,” said Abdulla-Janahi Khalid, the honorary chairman of Vision 3, an alliance of financial companies that is based in Bahrain. “It’s not what people want. Across the Arab world, people just want to be listened to. They simply don’t want to be subjects any more.”

He said that if that means that Arab elites must give up some of the advantages that they have long held in order to help the rest of the population, so be it. “Without a real middle class, Arab society will have problems one way or another,” he said.

“Elites like me will say, ‘Oh, we’re going to lose out,’ ” Mr. Khalid added. “But we may have to lose out in order to give something back to ourselves.”