TUNISIA: THE POLITICAL PRIMER(Note: by reading this you agree to withhold all liability against me, especially if information gathered herein were to upset an actual Tunisian person.)I. History.Tunisia, a country of ten million people, lies between mountain, sand and sea. Its history as a country is quite brief: before, it was occupied by the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Ottomans, the French and the Italians (for a few days). The republican movement emerged in the 1920s and coalesced under one leader, the late President Habib Bourguiba.
Bourguiba's increasingly authoritarian regime went in step with his desire for a unique Tunisian identity. That identity is essentially "Arab-Islamic," bordering on the secular. While religious authorities had the liberty to act in the private sphere, the state entrenched women's rights and took no cues from the Qu'ran. A socialized economy gave way in the eighties, the same time as the pan-Arabist vision collapsed.
In 1987, the nearly demential Bourguiba was overthrown by Interior minister and confidant Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. This coup reconsolidated the regime against Islamists outside of the government circle, like Rashid Ghannouchi (more on him later). Economic liberalization was accompanied by a pivot to the West, bringing tourism dollars with it. But such sedation can't last for 20 years; by 2008 there were strikes and anger in the South. Of course, the action everyone remembers is what happened in late 2010, when a young man, Mohamed Bouazizi, burned himself alive in protest of the regime. He inspired rallies from the Sahara to Tunis, and Ben Ali fled by the next month.
As the former president's system collapsed, those suppressed under decades of Bourguiba-Ben Ali rule returned. First was Ghannouchi, more than ready to commence his Islamist movement. Then there were the unions and the Salafist cells. A coalition between Ghannouchi's Islamists and opposition lists was to lead the country to renewed prosperity and a proper constitution within a year at most.
What actually happened? - Investment slowed, wages stagnated, and the Revolution upset a tourism industry that had kept the southern regions afloat. Unemployment reached new highs, and the villages who first revolted continued to suffer. Meanwhile, the "Constituent Assembly "stalled; infighting between the coalition meant no text was forthcoming. Things reached boiling point in 2013, when the extremist threat surged once more and led to the death of significant politicians. By August, rallies in Tunis were calling for the government's immediate dissolution.
By surrendering the prime ministership, the ruling coalition entered into a "national dialogue" with opposition forces, a fusion of regime apparatchiks and leftists. This process, started in October, was too many times close to collapse. Somehow the parties have ended up agreeing to an interim government, a new election law and a large set of constitutional amendments, the last of which is being debated right now in the Constituent Assembly.
Yes, seriously. While its passage does not guarantee an election this year, it is the only way any such election will matter.
