Tunisia's bumpy path to democracy

Here is a brief excerpt of my latest piece in Foreign Policy:

TUNIS, Tunisia — On the eighth floor of a whitewashed building in downtown Tunis, Kamel Jendoubi sits bleary-eyed at a desk drowning in papers, his day full of meetings and far from over despite the darkening sky outside his window.

Jendoubi is president of Tunisia's Independent High Election Committee (ISIE by its French initials), tasked with supervising the country's first elections since the fall of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. Scheduled for Oct. 23, they will also be the first popular elections in any country whose ruler was ousted by the Arab Spring. Unlike Libya, Tunisia has experienced relatively little violence, and unlike Egypt, the old regime has relatively little power to perpetuate itself.

But Jendoubi's task isn't easy. He's beset with a growing roster of concerns, ranging from reports of election corruption to limited resources and experience. "For me, we don't have enough election officials. … We are hearing rumors of parties and candidates giving money to voters," he says.

The full article is available here.