The unrest that led to the toppling of Tunisian President Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali – the first time in recent history that an Arab leader has been ousted through a peaceful civic uprising – has now spread to Egypt and, to a lesser extent, to a number of other Arab countries.

It is not clear whether the protests in Egypt and the other states undergoing turmoil will lead to full scale Tunisian-style revolutions but what is certain is that a new era of “people power” has begun in the Arab world, which, for far too long, has been led mostly by autocratic regimes.

In many Arab countries political and economic reform is long overdue, corruption is believed to be widespread, human rights abuses are common, citizens do not have the right to change their government through the ballot box and poverty and unemployment (in mainly non-Gulf Arab states) is rampant.

All these factors are the perfect ingredients for social unrest and revolution, although each Arab country has its own particular set of political and economic circumstances. Amr Moussa, the Arab League’s secretary-general, summed up the situation perfectly in Davos last week when he remarked the Arabs were angry and frustrated and “the name of the game is reform”.

The massive protests in Egypt should come as a surprise to nobody. Forty three per cent of Egyptians live on or below the poverty line, unemployment is high, President Hosni Mubarak rules under emergency laws, corruption is said to be rife, charges of election rigging abound, many opposition candidates are prevented from running in elections and the government’s human rights record is poor.

Egypt, with a population of 84 million, is strategically far more important than Tunisia and plays an important role in the Arab world. An Egyptian revolution would change the face of the Middle East and have vast regional consequences. If not leaving immediately, President Mubarak must embark on a programme of genuine political reform, including the introduction of fair and free elections, before the situation, already precarious, gets out of hand. He must also make it clear he will not stand for “re-election” in September, nor will he hand over power to his son, Gamal Mubarak, considered to be President-in-waiting.

The Egyptian government’s immediate response to the unrest – shutting down the internet, firing at protesters and placing Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed Al Baradei, one of the country’s leading pro-democracy advocates, under house arrest – is not encouraging. It is therefore important both the United States and the European Union increasingly exert pressure on Cairo to exercise restraint and to signal an intention to bring about reform. Washington, after all, has a huge influence on the Egyptian regime, providing it with a massive $2 billion a year in aid.

Besides Egypt, there have been reports of protests in Algeria, Jordan, Mauritania, Sudan, Libya and Yemen, so the Tunisian revolution has clearly already had an effect on the Arab world. The situation, however, is still very fluid and the establishment of secular democracies in the Arab world will not be easy. In many Arab countries, for example, the opposition includes Islamist movements that lack democratic credentials while, in others, there are no established opposition groups. However, secular democracies in the Islamic world are possible, as countries like Turkey and Indonesia have shown, and, hopefully, Tunisia will prove. This is what the West should be promoting. If they so wish, Arabs deserve to live in pluralistic free societies, just like everyone else.