A few words on this (I wish I can write more Tunisia long posts but I have some earlier ones already). Here's the one tweet summary:
https://twitter.com/MonicaLMarks/status/1154391397778239489Whether due to health reasons or otherwise, Essebsi really has not tried to influence Tunisia back to its pre-revolution form of government. These days the head of government is decisively the Prime Minister and Essebsi maintained the grand coalition between his party and the Islamist Ennahda, dysfunction and all:
"Essebsi campaigned to victory in 2014 by systematically characterising Ennahda as dangerous, even violent, fundamentalist retrogrades who lacked education and modernity," said Ms Marks. "But he came to have a sort of begrudging respect with regard Ennahdha."
Ms Marks said that Essebsi's greatest moment as leader was when he showed up as the keynote speaker for Ennahda's party congress in May 2016, which she called among the most significant moments in Tunisia's political history. "I've never seen anything that surreal," said Ms Marks, who attended the gathering. "He got more cheers than Ghannouchi. Thousands gave him a standing ovation. That moment when he gave that address that was an extremely pivotal moment."
But the problem is that he's now dead, but the polarization between Islamists and more secular coastal types he campaigned on isn't. If you want to be bleak, Ben Ali also went truly dictatorial after free elections in 1989 apparently showed stronger results for Ennahda than expected, so who knows what elections now bring?
More realistically, the biggest change is that presidential elections will now occur a month before parliamentary ones. Probably good news for current frontrunner and shady oligarch Nabil Karoui, who gets to ride momentum right now and leverage his performance in the parliamentary race afterwards.
