Arab leaders made a pitch to lure foreign investment into the region at the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) of business and political heavyweights. With the region still suffering political gyrations and the rise of Islamic parties to power, they had a tough case to make. “For the first time in the Arab world, we have free and honest elections that led to democratic regimes," Tunisian Prime Minister Hammadi Jebali, an Islamist himself, told a panel in Davos, the Swiss town where the WEF holds its annual conclave. Western executives were urged not to demonize the Islamic movements. "I would like to ask the businessmen in the room. Have you suffered from the victory of the Islamists? You supported the dictatorships in the past," said another Islamist Moroccan Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane. Moez Masoud, an Egyptian Islamic scholar, said opinion polls show people expect Islamists to produce practical results. "It wasn’t about bikinis or no bikinis, or whether to implement Sharia law. It got down to jobs, money and security, and the people wanted the best-organized groups," he said.
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