Tunisia’s Politicians Play On

The Tunisian political game continues, thankfully without a brazen coup (for now), yet sadly without much regard for the needs of common citizens. Here is an excerpt from my latest analysis in the Cairo Review:

...despite deep ideological rifts, continuing economic woes, and regional pressures, Tunisia’s political game continues.
To understand Tunisia’s current political state, it is helpful to distinguish the public’s latent disenchantment, frustration and anger from the specific triggers that, in the last several months, sparked a series of demonstrations, moved large institutional players clearly into the opposition camp, and motivated opposition politicians to push for an end to Ennahda’s rule and the dissolution of Tunisia’s only elected body, the National Constituent Assembly.

To read the full article, click here.

Tunisia and 'the Egyptian Model'

Here is an excerpt from my recent analysis in the Cairo Review:

In both Tunisia and Egypt, the state’s most important and entrenched institution remains the security establishment. In the case of Egypt, this means the army. It wields enormous political power, has close relations with the U.S., oversees the complicated relations with Israel, and maintains interests in virtually all sectors of the economy. Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak were all military men, and it seems that General Abdul-Fattah El-Sisi seeks to follow in their footsteps.
In Tunisia it is the Interior Ministry that retains potentially decisive power. This is the case particularly with the police, which was led at one point by Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, before his ascendance to the presidency. Tunisia, under his rule, was rightly characterized as a police state. What we know of the Interior Ministry is more limited than what we know of the Egyptian army, and Human Rights Watch has described it as “a black box,” However, tiny slivers of light have begun to emerge, and the role of the ministry and the police in the current standoff between pro- and anti-government protesters may be key to understanding why Tunisia has not followed Egypt’s lead.

To continue reading, click here.

Tunisia and the 'Arab Spring' Reversal

The following is an excerpt from my recent analysis of Tunisia's current turmoil following another political assassination. Read the full article here at Jadaliyya.

Two years ago, hope was not only palpable in the streets of Tunis; it was infectious. Young Arabs had risen up and triumphed against a Western-supported dictator whose police state ran on fear. Similar uprisings across the region seemed to have confirmed that Tunisia had led the way towards a new, more democratic order. And Tunisia was about to lead the way again by holding a clean election, almost unprecedented in the Middle East and North Africa.

Now, hope is in rare supply across the region. Egypt’s elections yielded new leaders that blindly and illiberally ran the country along strict partisan lines until a military coup publicly reasserted old-regime institutions. Libya’s timid leaders and bold militias have hampered democracy, security and institution building. Syria’s revolution turned into a bloody war and a hellish game for external actors, while Lebanon desperately tries to quarantine itself from the neighboring chaos. Western observers use increasingly desperate euphemisms for Iraq’s escalating civil war. No one dares talk about Bahrain, or perhaps no one cares. Other Gulf countries quietly quarrel amongst themselves through political and economic maneuvering in neighboring proxy countries.

While numerous pundits bemoan “Arab Spring” fatigue, many still believed that tiny Tunisia alone might overcome its challenges to create a new inclusive, civic, stable, free, and prosperous political order. But what started in Tunisia may soon end in Tunisia as the gains of the “Arab Spring” are systematically rolled back with the help of old regime forces, ascendant ideological zealots, domestic lassitude, and powerful outside players that are uncomfortable with independent, populist politics in the region.

Read the rest here.

The obscure future of women in a new Tunisia

Below is an excerpt from my piece in Al Masry Al Youm:

The Islamist Ennahdha party’s election victory in Tunisia has come to mean many things to many people. For many outside observers wary of how the “Arab Spring” might reshape regional politics, their victory signals a trend that will allow more conservative elements in the region to follow suit and succeed to power. For others, the victory is a positive sign that political Islam in the region has become ‘moderate’ and will adhere to a model of democracy a la Turkey.
But for women’s rights activists in Tunisia, the victory is a worrying sign that their battle for equality has suddenly become a great deal more difficult.
Days after Tunisia’s historic 23 October elections for a constituent assembly, tasked primarily with writing a new constitution, Tunisian feminists held an emergency meeting at Tunis’ feminist university to discuss strategy options.
“Our conviction now is that we have to fight for the preservation of the women’s rights that were included in the previous constitution,” says Salma Hajri, a physician and a member of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women, or ATFD by its French acronym.
Ennahdha, which bills itself not as an Islamist party but as a party “in reference to Islam,” won roughly 40 percent of the vote and took 89 out of 217 seats in the new assembly, three times more than their closest opponents. The victory has set off alarm bells for many women’s rights activists who are concerned that instead of pushing to achieve legal parity, they will now be forced to defend the rights that Tunisian women have already won. “We have to be very watchful and very focused,” says Hajri.
Tunisian women enjoy relatively strong legal protection of their rights in comparison to neighboring countries. The Code of Personal Status, promulgated in 1957 by Tunisia’s first president, Habib Bourguiba, abolished polygamy, created stricter divorce laws aimed at protecting women, and improved women’s access to higher education. Subsequent amendments to the code have further bolstered women’s rights.
However, Tunisia is not a constitutionally secular state, and women’s rights are still subject legally to a reading of Islamic law in one particular and important case: inheritance. Tunisia’s inheritance law, based on Islamic law, or Sharia, grants the greater share of inheritance to male heirs. ATFD saw such Islamic influence over the law as a threat to women’s rights and are concerned over greater reliance on the Sharia following Ennahdha’s win. “Feminism is really completely the opposite of the philosophy and conviction of the Islamists,” Hajri says.

The full article can be viewed here: http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/538661

Tunisia's Identity politics

Here is a brief excerpt from my piece in Al-Masry Al-Youm this week:

Rachid Ghannouchi, the leader of the Islamic-oriented Ennahda (Renaissance) Party, drew attention this week when he suggested in several interviews that his party would win a majority in the upcoming parliament. However, at a press conference in Tunis on Wednesday, Ghannouchi warned that "there is a risk of the election results being manipulated.”

“If there is manipulation, we will rejoin the forces and the guardians of the revolution which ousted Ben Ali and the first [interim] government. We are ready to oust up to ten governments if needed,” he was quoted as saying.

The comment has drawn concern from other Tunisian political parties, including the the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP).

“We are not going to work with them, especially after this last declaration,” says Ahmed Bouazzi, a member of the PDP’s executive committee. However, PDP insists that it will respect the results of the election, regardless of the results. “We believe these elections will be fair. We will accept them because we are democrats. If Ennahda wins the majority, we will accept the result.”

Ennahda insists on shucking the “Islamist” label, instead saying that it is a party with an Arab-Islamic “reference.”

“For us, the respect of Islam, of our history, our civilization, that’s the base of our party,” says Nourreddine Arbaoui, a member of Ennahda's political bureau.

The entire piece is available at http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/507192