The popular uprising that swept Bin Ali from power may have been just, but the question is now, can it be democratic, asks Salah Eissa* What happened in Tunisia is nothing more than what is commonly referred to as a "corrective movement" or a "palace coup". President Zein Al-Abidine Bin Ali has been forced to leave the country, but the political regime that he led for 23 years is mostly intact. The only change is that a new wing of the elite is taking over. What happened in Tunisia was not a popular revolution like that of the French (1898), the Russians (1917), the Iranians (1979) or the Portuguese (2005). True, widespread public protests played a major role in ending the career of Bin Ali. But other than that, there is no guarantee of a major change in the country's political direction. We have no way of knowing what really happened behind the scenes on Friday, 14 January 2011. And until things cool off a little, it'll be hard to know who the real leaders of this corrective movement are. What seems clear enough so far is that the Tunisian army has played an important role in recent developments. At one point, the army ditched Bin Ali, abandoning the president to his fate and distancing itself from the president's family. The army also distanced itself from the police forces on whom Bin Ali depended so much. Interestingly enough, Bin Ali left the country without taking any measures for a transferal of power. The army took charge of the airport and closed the country's airspace. A state of emergency was declared, but by whom? No one is sure. Then the police was pulled off the streets. This was followed by tentative, and mostly unconstitutional, ways to fill the power vacuum, with the prime minister assuming power first, followed by the speaker of parliament. A rift, meanwhile, has appeared between the police services, on which the regime staked its future, and the military institution that preferred to maintain a neutral stand. Bin Ali may have depended on misleading police reports about the size and staying power of the demonstrations. But in the end, it was the heavy-handed ways of the police that hastened his demise. The demonstrations were initially about unemployment and high prices, but it wasn't long before protesters turned their attention to the country's rampant corruption and restrictions on freedom. Two weeks after the demonstrations began, Bin Ali sacked the interior minister and told the army to keep law and order. But it was too late. The demonstrators were not in a mood for concessions. And the police forces, feeling that Bin Ali was about to blame them for everything, stopped clashing with the demonstrators. The army didn't want to get involved in the mess, and the rest is history. One can call this the second corrective movement in Tunisia's history. The first corrective movement, or palace coup, was the one Bin Ali carried out against Habib Bourguiba in 1987. What the two movements have in common is that they were both planned from within the regime, and with the aim of keeping the regime in place. The two movements took note of public frustration and used it to oust a despot. The Bin Ali regime was a classic case of Third World authoritarianism. It was a regime that refused to evolve, depended on police rule, and thrived on widespread corruption. The leaders -- whom we don't know -- of the second corrective movement in Tunisia will have to react to public discontent. They will have to change the conditions that existed in Bin Ali's time, especially with regards to democracy. They will have to end the isolationist policies of the previous regime, do something about standards of living, and create jobs for unemployed college graduates. And, by the way, this is what Bin Ali did in the early years of his rule. But it's not going to be easy to turn Tunisia from a police state into a democracy. As we have seen in recent years, countries that get rid of their dictators don't become democracies by default. Two things make me argue that the democratisation of Tunisia would be difficult. One is that the people that took to the streets acted voluntarily and without leadership. Their protests took place in the absence of guidance and participation on the part of organised parties and political movements. As soon as Bin Ali left the country, they went home. The protesters were common people, not versed in the art of politics. They are the average citizens of a country that hasn't seen democracy for decades. Without the help of the country's political parties and movements, public discontent may not turn into sustainable democracy. The other thing is that the political parties and movements of Tunisia seem to be out of practice. After years of authoritarianism, Tunisian parties are disconnected from the public and estranged from each other. They need to find something in common, some goals for the entire nation to agree upon, and to pursue them. This, too, is not going to be easy. So what's going to happen next? Short of full democracy, supported by active political parties and sustained by public interest and participation, the two most likely options are dismal. One is for the army to rule, blatantly or from behind a civilian façade. The other is for the Islamists to step in and impose an authoritarian rule of religious dimensions. * The writer is editor-in-chief of Al-Qahira weekly newspaper.
