Two months after the toppling of former president Zein Al-Abidine bin Ali, the Tunisian revolution has really only just begun, writes Mourad Teyeb in Tunis It needed an additional 10-day sit-in in the symbolic Kasbah Square, and seven to 10 people shot dead in days of demonstrations in the Tunisian capital Tunis and the towns of Kasserine and Kef. It also needed thousands of voices to rise, for the first time since former president Zein Al-Abidine bin Ali was forced from office on 14 January, for more drastic measures to be taken towards breaking with the Bin Ali era and taking decisions on the country's political future. As a result, in just one week Tunisian prime minister Mohamed Ghannoushi, seen as a last rampart of the Bin Ali regime and the former ruling Rassemblement constitutionnel démocratique Party (RCD), resigned, giving up a 40-day fight against a large part of Tunisian society. Ghannoushi, who had earlier promised to quit as soon as a new president and parliament had been elected, has now finally joined his former boss in retirement, along with many other former fellow ministers. According to many observers, these developments, breaking the political impasse that had characterised the country until last week and which had largely accounted for the insecurity and wave of riots that had hit the country in recent weeks, did not come as a surprise. Tunisian democracy is still very young, and it is shaped by some 50 years of oppression, during which political parties were banned, no forms of free association existed and independent thought was not allowed to grow, even within the political and security establishments of former presidents Habib Bourguiba, who led the country to independence from the former colonial power France, and Bin Ali. Tunisia's political elite has thus far been unable to impose itself in the post-revolutionary circumstances in which the country now finds itself. Politicians, leaders of the country's opposition, activists and scholars, formerly seen as heroes for having dared to challenge Bin Ali's police state, have not been able to convince the Tunisian public of their ability to move from words to action in the post- revolutionary period. Figures including Moncef Marzouki, Ahmed Ibrahim, Najib Shebbi, Ahmed Ounaies and Ahmed Friaa have all failed to win the confidence of the Tunisian public. Whether or not these figures, all of whom have impeccable credentials, are not suited to the new Tunisia, the fact is that it has been their shortcomings rather than their qualities that have been uppermost in the minds of most observers. Getting rid of any one of them has been a source of deep satisfaction to the Tunisian public. The last two weeks have been the busiest since Bin Ali's flight in January for Tunisia's politicians. On 3 March, eight new political parties were registered, giving the country a total of 21 parties, up from nine before the January revolution. The recognition of the Ennahdha, or Renaissance, Party, which is Islamist-leaning, was a major development, though it is one that has been expected since the fall of the former regime. According to observers, the Party's influence on the country's political and social future is likely to be huge, and, considered sympathetic to terrorism by Bin Ali, but thought of as moderate by most observers, the Party has rebounded onto the country's political scene after 20 years in the wilderness. While Ennahdha claims a role for Islam in the country's future, its leaders have not explicitly called for any laws enforcing Islamic practices. According to Party spokesman Abdallah Zouari, the legalisation of the party was "a step in favour of the Tunisian revolution." Ennahdha "will focus on rebuilding and electing a new leader to prepare for the upcoming elections," he said. Today, the party is at the centre of a growing debate in Tunisia on the role of Islam in the country's fledgling democracy. How important its role will be is hard to ascertain, but when it ran in the 1989 elections, the last before the Party's banning under Bin Ali, it got 17 percent of the vote. According to Abdel-Hamid Jelassi, a senior Ennahdha official once jailed on charges of plotting against the state, the Party "still resonates with many Tunisians. It is impossible to say how popular Ennahdha is because polls were banned under Bin Ali." However, "a large segment of Tunisia's population sympathises with the Islamist movement," he said. Eric Goldstein, deputy-director for Middle East and North Africa at the American NGO Human Rights Watch, agrees. "Ennahdha has a significant base of support in Tunisia and wants to play a political role," Goldstein told reporters last week. "And it should be allowed to play a political role as long as it remains true to its professed commitment: to respect the rules of the game, to respect the rights of women and to respect the results of elections." Nevertheless, some in Tunisia worry that should it win power Ennahdha "might roll back women's rights," something which Party members deny. Khadija Sherif, a leading Tunisian human rights activist and secretary-general of the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights, has called for guarantees on the "a separation of mosque and state" and for Tunisia's constitution to be amended "to include secularism as a political principle." "If religion is separate from politics, what's the point of Ennahdha as a political party," she asked, adding that it should be seen as "playing a cultural role" instead. However, Ennahdha's Jelassi said that "democracy in Tunisia, as well as in the Arab world, can have a religious dimension." Ennahdha "wants to win over Tunisian voters, not because of religion but because of its political platform, on unemployment or education for example," he said, describing the Party as a "a variation" on Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party. For his part, Tunisian lawyer and activist Taher Yehia said that he believed that Tunisian society, most of whose members are young, "has developed in order to distinguish between what is good for the country and what is not." "Preventing people from exercising their rights through Islamic organisations is out of date," Yahia said, warning of the consequences of "preventing Muslims from gaining their essential rights." While the debate on the relationship between Islamist politics and democracy has been launched in Tunisia, there has been little discussion of possible alliances between parties ahead of elections. Ennahdha is one of the most popular political entities in Tunisia, and other parties and politicians lack its popularity and credibility. Many of these latter parties may be tempted to enter into alliance with Ennahdha in order to improve their chances in the forthcoming elections. "Ennahdha's opponents would rather have an alliance with the Party in one form or another," believes Yahia, rather than going head to head against it. "Unless a new popular party sees the light of day, Ennahdha will find itself with no serious rival in the upcoming elections." Some observers think that the only party that will be excluded from any possible alliance will be any party created from what is left of the now dissolved RCD, Bin Ali's former ruling party. For the moment, thoughts in Tunisia are turned towards 24 July, when a new Constituent Assembly will be elected, this being charged with drawing up a new constitution for post-revolutionary Tunisia.
