Arab countries now embarking on transition to a more open, democratic system, had a blueprint of mistakes to avoid when reforming political institutions by drawing on the history of transition in Eastern Europe, panellists at an international conference on transitions in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Middle East said.

One such failure was the Eastern European countries' lofty goals of building complicated political systems, which proved an impediment down the line, Radoslaw Markowski, from the Institute of Political Studies and Center for the Study of Democracy in Poland, said.

Round tables deciding the future direction of transition in Eastern European countries always kept an eye on Kremlin, "the external veto player", and the resulting political system framework were not the outcome of a deliberate decision, rather emerging haphazardly, Markowski said.

The extensive focus on political issues led to neglect of the economic community and the "importance of rules of the game in the economy", which further extended the transition period, he said.

Philip Dimitrov, Bulgarian prime minister in 1991/92, likewise counseled against overly complicating the process. "To be successful, you have to do [reforms] quick and simple," he said. Delaying the process by introducing increasingly complex issues allowed the energy of revolutions to dissipate, he said.

Isam al Khafaji, special adviser and consultant on social and economic affairs of Middle East, from the Netherlands, cautioned against treating the region as one homogenous entity. "Development levels will influence institutions. There is a difference between the highly educated and ubarnised population of Tunisia and the clan politics of Yemen," he said.

Furthermore, the issue of reform could be further complicated by divisions in societies where current regimes had at least some level of social support, like Lybia or Syria, he said.

Events in Lybia, especially, overshadowed the political processes in Egypt and Tunisia, where the issues of transition were most salient after the fall of former regimes, Greek foreign minister Dimitris Droutsas said.

Answering these concerns, Sihem Bensendrine, spokesperson for the National Council for Freedoms in Tunisia, said that the country had chosen to do away with its old institutions and draft a new constitutional framework following elections in July. Steps taken in the meantime included the lustration of officials from the previous regime, who were barred from standing for elected positions, and prohibiting foreign funding of political parties, along with imposing limits on private donations to parties, in order to ensure a level playing field in the elections.

Hesham Khedr, founder of the El Nahda islamic party in Egypt, acknowledged the concerns about political Islam, but emphasised that barring islamic parties from participating in elections was the wrong course of action because it substituted the will of the voters and could trigger a backlash.