Can democracy survive?

The workings of democracy in the Middle East have called into question the
validity of this system of Government, and might turn others off this
much-touted Western method of organizing society.
Take for example the elections in the Palestine Authority. What have they
produced? Because of a split within the Fatah movement between the old
guard (mainly those who came with Arafat from Tunisia) and the new younger
members (mostly those indigenous to the territories), there were at one time
two Fatah lists, which were then merged in order to avoid a complete split.
Marwan Barhghouti, who is jailed for murder in Israel, was head of both lists,
and became the head of the combined list. But, nevertheless in many
constituencies new younger members stood as candidates against the old guard.
The effect of this was to split the Fatah vote, so although Fatah overall got
57% of the vote, Hamas won the election with only 43% because they had one
list of candidates. Is this democracy?
Also, the election has thrown up for the first time a terrorist organization
as a functioning Government, that has discomfited many established regimes in
the Arab world. King Abdullah of Jordan is especially worried, because he has
a majority (ca. 70%) of west Palestinians in his country. Mubarak of Egypt is
also worried because Hamas is the ally of his fervent opposition, the Muslim
Brotherhood, that is banned in Egypt, but won nearly 40% of the vote under
another guise in the recent elections, in which opponent candidates were
allowed to run for the first time. If the Muslim Brotherhood were able to take
over Egypt, or a similar Palestinian party to Hamas were able to take over
Jordan, this would be a disaster for the West and for the Arabs themselves.
It would be akin to the disaster when the West stood by and allowed the Shah
to be replaced by the infinitely worse, from a humanitarian and political
point of view, anti-Western clerical Shi'ite Khomeneist regime.
Meanwhile in Israel, although the Labor Party ran on a much-touted social
program, and many voted for parties with a socioeconomic agenda, such as
Shas, the Pensioner's Party and even Israel Beiteinu (mainly Russians), what
has actually happened is that the largest number of cabinet members in
history, 27, are about to be appointed (this up from an original number of
15!) Not only will this add much increased costs to running this Government
(salaries, offices, cars and drivers, etc.), but some of the appointments are
contrary to the platform of the parties involved. For example, Amir Peretz,
the former Histadrut Union leader, who has no experience whatsoever, is
slated to be the Defense Minister, while he ran on a platform of social
reform. This is a slap in the face for his electorate who voted for him and
his party depending on them to take action in order to improve their
socioeconomic standing. This election was the lowest percentage of voting
in Israeli history mainly because so many voters have become disillusioned
with the democratic process. Who can blame them?
And in Iraq, after 5 months bickering they finally announced the appointment
of a compromise candidate for PM, a member of the Shi'ite majority, and now he
has to form a Government that has to effectively put down the insurgency that
has been growing during this time. One wonders if democracy can survive these
successes.