What is your response to events in Tunisia?
This is unprecedented in Tunisia and in the Arab world.
That a "Marcos"-like downfall or a people's power happens in Tunisia is still difficult to believe. Now, the scenario of a spill-over effect is what Bin Ali's escape is feeding into the millions of "heads" amongst the disaffected populations of Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, Ramallah, and Yemen.
I have since the 1990s written about the collapse of the post-independence "moral economy" or "bread compact" being a key catalyst for political change in the impoverished Arab states. The provision of bread (metaphor for subsidised goods) in return for political deference has left society with no option but to protest.
To an extent, Tunisia came very close to unhinging the Bourguiba regime in the 1984 bread riots. At the time, the labour force was well-organised, had a clear and widely accepted programme for issues of socio-economic equity, and had a strong leadership under the late Habib Ashour. The army intervened and Bin Ali was called in in the aftermath to take charge of the security apparatus. President Bourguiba's regime was weakened by the brutality used then, and in three years later he found himself being bundled out of Carthage. Enter Bin Ali's era.
Skill, compromise, and vision will keep chaos in check.
So on the positive side, in 2011 under similar conditions, bread riots completed what had begun in 1984. Tunisia has rid itself of at once a Ceausescu-like (in terms of security control/brutality) and a Marcos-like (corruption) regime.
I think regardless of what comes next, the inheritors of the collapsed regime will now be mindful of this momentous "political tsunami" in the Arab political calendar. The ability of the people to mobilise and topple regimes will not be taken lightly any more. The Tunisian populace has regained confidence in its ability to change things on the ground.
On the negative side, the remnants of the ancien regime are still in place. It will take some time to sweep the corridors of power from the very political figures and machines that once lubricated the Bin Ali regime. But these remaining lackeys are not all one and the same. The risk of total power vacuum should be avoided.
So it is time to take stock, engage in dialogue, and political bargains involving the remaining political figures and leaders of civil society, the ruling Constitutional Democratic Rally and other political parties must sit together.
This is not time to be "triumphant". Lots of hard work, at this critical point of time, remains to be done. Skill, compromise, and vision will keep chaos in check.
The last thing now the political society wants is to condemn the country to either indefinite state of protest or give the army an excuse to take charge. Although behind the scene, it is the army's withdrawal of loyalty to Bin Ali that brought him unstuck.
Toppling a regime through bread riots is something; showing a knack for pact-making (a la Spanish) is something else.
What must not be forgotten is this change gives no automatic legitimacy to the Tunisian weak and divided opposition, including expatriate groups, Islamist and liberal. They did not precipitate Bin Ali's overthrow.
The people did.
Do you believe that elections in 60 days will be free and fair and properly democratic?
Three months in a country, which had only facade institution-building, fragile political parties, proscribed or "loyal" opposition, total absence of a free press, is not enough to prepare for a "democratic breakthrough".
I suspect and I know there are divisions within the opposition too. Right now, coalition-building and institution-building should ideally be the outcome of the elections.
It is kind of elections to set in motion over four of five years a process of constructing the building blocs of gradual legalisation of multi-partyism, constitution-rewriting, perhaps a new charter that produces a set of shared values as well as a road-map for the post Bin Ali's Tunisia.
Least but not last, given the secrecy, brutality and corruption associated with Bin Ali, a "truth and reconciliation" type process is needed to recover stolen public assets, land, monies, as well as avoid vindictiveness and plunging the country into political chaos.
The key challenge now is to clarify what would be the objectives of any elections held in three months. I fear that holding elections for the sake of elections, or because the constitution says so, might need re-thinking.
What kind of leader will Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi be?
Under Bin Ali, he was literally a yes-type Prime Minister. He's no doubt himself still shaken by the events of the past 24 hours. He was a professional man and not much is known about his finances.
It must be assumed that he had no choice but to be loyal to Bin Ali out fear. I think he is a man with a role to play in the period of transition. In spite of this, he will not be able to shake off the stigma of being too close to Bin Ali, probably Tunisia's longest running Premier.
His role along with Mbazza' throughout as part of a care-taker transitional authority might be the best he can do right now. He should be given an honourable and safe exit from politics after the transitional period.
The man to watch out for may be Kemal Morjane, Bin Ali's Foreign Minister, who chose to resign in protest against the use of force against civilians. His UN background, amongst other credentials, might help him win Western backing.
Could unrest spread across North Africa and Middle East?
Food prices are reported to have been reduced in a few Arab states such as Jordan since the eruption of the Tunisia protests.
Indeed, the prospects for a spill-over effects remain real and serious in countries having a socio-economic template of a failed "moral economy", wide corruption, nepotism, and hereditary ambitions.
Egypt is a case in point. Jordan has similar problems of equity, and unemployment to Tunisia. Yemen is a powder keg as far as poverty goes. Neighbouring Algeria and Morocco are other hot spots where the potential for protest is right now feeling the infectious momentum built by Tunisia's own bread uprisings.
Are the people calling for democracy middle-class and are they supported by the ordinary man?
I think there are two agendas.
Firstly, bread riots always feed into the political. Regimes in the 1980s decided, in their wisdom, that the vote could be given when they failed through the tacit contract of the post-independence period to provide social welfare goods.
But the kind of "election fetishism" that spread to all corners of the Arab world has not been convincing, genuine or substantive. So the "bread agenda" is real. It will not go away with or without democracy. Whatever administration comes after Bin Ali will not escape this.
Secondly, Tunisia is the first Arab and Muslim state to have a constitution in 1860. So the political tradition has been there for 150 years coupled with a strong practice of statehood for over nearly 1000 years. It had the Arab world's first Human Rights League, a labour unionism tradition since the colonial period, and a "cosmopolitan" civic elite that through education, training, and residence in various EU states came to adopt democratic values.
This change gives no automatic legitimacy to the Tunisian weak and divided opposition... They did not precipitate Bin Ali's overthrow. The people did.
The problem has been the state: neo-patrimonial and singular. The political society will need 20 years or a new generation to rebuild itself. But literacy is high enough and homogeneity, consensus building gives Tunisia a good start on that path.
And right now, "people power" is another added value that enriches the local political culture. But democracy for the sake of democracy is desirable in an ideal world.
Right now the ideal in Tunisia is to set up the kind of democratic practices and vision so that democracy facilitates both fair slicing of the economic cake and fair and free distribution of power.
I think they are mutually reinforcing in the Tunisian context.
Dr Larbi Sadiki is a Senior Lecturer on Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter.
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