Tunisia has chosen democracy. The West must ensure its survival
By DAVID MCLAUGHLIN - The Globe and Mail
David McLaughlin was an election observer with the National Democratic Institute for the Tunisian presidential election.
In the gathering dusk of the Arab Spring, Tunisia remains the brightest light and hope for democrats and democracy in North Africa.
Sunday's presidential elections - the first free vote since independence from France in 1956 - reinforce that, of any of the countries that overthrew their dictators and autocrats, Tunisia offers the best chance for a lasting democratic culture to take root.
For democrats, Tunisia offers the prospect of stability and progress. But western democracies will need to pay it serious attention. Democratic progress must be accompanied by economic progress. Tunisia requires western aid and development beyond the significant democratic assistance countries like Canada have already given.
Tunisia's presidential elections Sunday promise another step away from the country's authoritarian past.
Mr. Ghannouchi, who is not on the presidential ballot, is the one person most responsible for fostering the introduction of an Arab democracy, however fragile, in this North African nation-the exception in a region torn apart by the violent upheavals of the past four years.
Ponder the picture of the bearded leader of the Islamist Nahda (Renaissance) Party last month calling to congratulate the head of the rival secular bloc for its victory in Tunisia's parliamentary elections. It was as if everybody had won.
Hardly. Nahda-which in 2011 secured a larger share (37%) of the country's first free vote than the Muslim Brotherhood ever won in Egypt-had finished a surprise second in Tunisia's second free election. With no apparent bitterness, Mr. Ghannouchi offered to join a government of national unity with the victorious Nidaa Tounes (Tunisian Call), which brings together remnants of the old secular and repressive regime ousted in early 2011.
As promised, to calm secular nerves in Tunisia, Nahda isn't running a candidate in this weekend's presidential elections. Mr. Ghannouchi keeps repeating that without consensus and power-sharing, no formerly authoritarian country can build a democracy.
Mr. Ghannouchi seems to have digested this basic lesson. But have the people of the ancien, undemocratic regime?
By Monia Ghanmi in Tunis for Magharebia- 03/12/2014
Tunisia's first permanent, democratically elected parliament held its opening session on Tuesday (December 2nd).
The 217-seat parliament was elected October 26th in the country's first free legislative election.
Tunisia's new constitution, approved in January by the National Constituent Assembly, gives broad powers to the parliament. The body will exercise legislative power and oversight on government for the next five years.
"The habit of peaceful rotation of power that started to be consolidated in the country is a sign of democratic awareness among our political and civil elites," she added.
In a separate development, the Tunis Administrative Court on Monday rejected Marzouki's challenge of the presidential election.
Marzouki's appeal of the court's ruling means that the run-off election will be held on December 21st. He will face Nidaa Tounes candidate Beji Caid Essebsi.
Tunisia is the apparent anomaly in a Middle East where the terrorist Islamic State and its authoritarian rivals battle over the carcasses of Syria and Iraq. In January it
balancing power between the parliament chosen Sunday, which will confirm a prime minister, and a president to be popularly elected next month.
The Obama administration, which has embraced the canard that U.S. security interests conflict with democracy promotion, believes it is only embracing realism when it calls Egypt's new strongman, Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, "a key partner for the United States." President Obama went out of his way to meet Sissi at the United Nations in September, but neither he nor Secretary of State John Kerry made time for Ghannouchi when he came to Washington the same month.
It is, in fact, a coalition and a platform that every other Arab state desperately needs - but that only Tunisia, with its embrace of democracy, can deliver.
From the very beginning, Tunisians understood that the constitution must be for all. There was a strong effort to write the constitution for everyone through dialogue, consensus and negotiations to address different fears, concerns and needs, which is why it took two years. We didn't rush like Egyptians. They wrote a constitution in a couple of months. A hastily written constitution cannot be a fruit of dialogue and consensus and loses meaning. I think Tunisians understood from the very beginning that democracy is about protecting minority rights.
The secularists were legitimately afraid that we would have a religious state that would impose religion on people so we had to address those fears to make sure that is a civil state. On the other hand, the Islamists were also afraid that a secular state would crack down on religion, like the one we had under Ben Ali where women were prevented from wearing the hijab. Even praying in the mosque could get you into trouble. There's a good balance between both fears in the constitution. It has enough guarantees that it will be a civil state that respects religious values.
Tunisia can become the shining model and show people in Libya, Egypt and everywhere that democracy not only works but it also delivers economic development, stability, jobs, and innovation. In 5-15 years, Tunisia could become like Switzerland. The alternative is dangerous - people may lose hope in democracy and revert to dictatorship, violence, perhaps civil war, extremism and poverty.
