Bye-bye Ben Ali… but where does that leave Tunisia?

Tunisia has all the ingredients to be a successful country. Strategically situated in the Mediterranean, with an excellent climate ideal for tourism, and a well educated work force there is no reason why it should not flourish despite the fact that it does not have the oil revenues of its neighbours Libya and Algeria.

In 1956 Tunisia was one of the first countries to achieve independence from the European colonial powers, under the leadership of a charismatic nationalist leader Habib Bourghiba. Bourghiba steered a moderate policy, avoided the firebrand anti colonialist rhetoric that was fashionable at the time and set about to build a modern forward looking country. The opposition complained of lack of freedoms, but by comparison to other regimes in the Arab world, this was a benign leadership.

Bourghiba however made the mistake of many leaders. He did not know when to let go. As he became older, he became senile. His son, Habib Bourghiba Junior was being groomed to succeed him but he lacked both the charisma and the political astuteness of his father. The inner circle around the president decided they could not wait until Bourghiba dies and in 1987 they removed him from power in a bloodless palace coup, and installed his Minister of Security, Zine Abbedine Ben Ali as president.

Ben Ali was essentially a policeman, and he was never interested in reaching out to his opponents, expecting them instead to fall in line with him and his policies. The regime became increasingly more repressive. The vibrant student organisations and trade unions that had been allowed space under the Bourghiba government were quickly suffocated. Opposition to the government went under the surface. It started articulating itself in Islamic terms, playing on the tensions in Tunisian society between a modern and westernised middle class in the capital city Tunis, and the more conservative elements in the interior of the country.

By the time of the first Gulf War it was already clear that the government was well out of tune with the population. Hundreds of thousands demonstrated against the war, despite the fact that the government was supporting it. A distance between government and governed emerged and Ben Ali was never able to close the gap. Presidential and Parliamentary elections were falsified, to give Ben Ali and his Constitutional Democratic Rally (formerly the Destour Party) fictitious landslide victories. In the last presidential election in 2009 Ben Ali claimed he received 89% of the vote. In parallel there was widespread corruption spearheaded by members of the families of the president and his wife.

On the positive side the status of women in Tunisia was probably better than anywhere else in the Arab world. Around 20% of MPs elected for the last parliament were women, and women exercise equal roles with men at all levels of society. Past Tunisian governments also gave a lot of care and attention to education and put substantial resources in its development, ensuring not only high levels of literacy but also good scores in tertiary level education.

Tunisia was hit like other countries by the global economic downturn. But the rioting of the last weeks, culminating in the dramatic departure of Ben Ali for exile in Saudi Arabia is not simply due to economic factors. For a long time the Tunisian people had been feeling violated, as if their country had been privatised by a small ruling clique. Economic difficulties, resulting in unemployment and rise in food prices helped give the opposition a common agenda to which everybody could relate.

For the moment the future is very uncertain. It is quite possible that the ruling elite will try to simply replace Ben Ali with somebody of the same ilk, maybe even another policeman or soldier. It is however unlikely that those who have forced Ben Ali's downfall will be satisfied with that. Many are asking who these people are and what place they will have in the post Ben Ali Tunisia.

There is little doubt that the movement with the most widespread grassroots support is the Islamist An Nahda movement led by Rashid Gannouche. Gannouche has been living in exile in London for nearly twenty years. In the 1990s I invited him to come and speak at the LSE to one of the student societies. He turned up (with about a hundred supporters) and gave an eloquent critique of the Tunisian government. His vision for Tunisia was however vaguely expressed than, as it is now. Al Nahda have tried to project themselves as moderate Islamists, rejecting the violent methods of the Algerian FIS or al Qaeda, yet it is also known that restless elements within the movement have been for a long time urging a more hard line approach. Many consider that for any future political project in Tunisia to work it is best that Al Nahda be brought in the political process. This will be hard to swallow for the current government who have been demonising the movement for the last quarter century.

Al Nahda will however be ready to co-operate with communists and other left wing groups whose ideologies in Tunisia have never been very popular, but who have influence over the Trade Unions and the student organisations. They are traditionally well organised, and it is quite possible that it was this potent Al Nahda-Radical Left alliance that finally was able to galvanise enough popular support to force Ben Ali out.

To these two ideologised groups need to be added the mainstream of the Tunisian middle class, who traditionally were Bourghiba's supporters and for a while also constituted the backbone of Ben Ali's government support. This middle class does not want to see an Islamic state in Tunisia, nor a communist takeover. However they have been increasingly vocal in their criticism of the government. The younger generation in particular, with better knowledge and connections with the outside world, became increasingly disillusioned with Ben Ali and many of them over the last few weeks threw in their lot with the opposition.

It is not clear if these three disparate groups will have the ability to work together to bring about deep political changes in Tunisia. The current interim government is simply a continuation of the former and probably has neither the will, nor indeed the capacity to implement deep-rooted reforms. So there may yet be more instability in Tunisia before things settle down one way or the other. This will harm further the Tunisian economy.

For the moment however all talk is of “domino effects” and the impact of the events in Tunis on neighbouring countries, such as Egypt, Algeria and Morocco. There is a danger that this can be overstated. These countries have different political dynamics, despite the obvious similarities and to talk of a domino effect may be premature

However this should not stop the debate about the need for political renewal in the Arab world and the dangers arising from regimes that lack legitimacy and ride roughshod over their own populations.

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* Dennis Sammut is the executive director of LINKS.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.