This week's elections in Tunisia have inevitably led to comparisons with Egypt. But how many of them are fair, asks Amira Howeidy Once again it was Tunisia week in Egypt. The last time the public obsessed about the country was in January, when the Jasmine Revolution overthrew Tunisia's dictator of 24 years. Zein Al-Abidine bin Ali fled the country on 14 January. Eleven days later Egyptians responded to calls -- previously ignored -- to begin their own revolution. Hosni Mubarak was ousted 18 days later, abandoning the presidency just 29 days after Tunisia's Bin Ali arrived in Saudi Arabia. Both countries have been comparing notes since. But as dramatic developments in Egypt consumed and divided Egyptians in recent months interest in Tunisia waned, reviving only this week as Tunisians went to the polls for their first free vote. The turnout was a staggering 90 per cent. As millions of Tunisians queued for hours to cast their vote, eager to taste democracy, the mood here was envious. Egyptians will indeed get a chance to elect their parliament on 28 November, but it will be a long process, ending in March 2012. Tunisia is not taking the Egyptian route to democratic transition. Tunisians were voting for an assembly that will write a new constitution, form a caretaker government and then set the date for legislative elections. In Egypt it is the next parliament that will choose an assembly mandated to draft a new constitution which will then be put to a referendum in a process that could take up to a year. Meanwhile, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Egypt's de facto ruler, has scrapped its earlier plan to stage presidential elections after the parliamentary poll. They will now be held after the constitution has been written. This means Egyptians will probably get to elect their president some time in 2013, two years after they rid themselves of Mubarak. It seems a convoluted process compared with Tunisia's simple two-step transition. Not to mention that Tunisia, since the toppling of Bin Ali, has been ruled by two civilian governments, not the military. As elections in Tunisia unrolled they lent momentum to the ongoing "constitution first" controversy. It is an issue that polarised Egyptians following March's referendum on constitutional amendments. Then 77.2 per cent of voters said yes to parliamentary elections first, followed by the drafting of a new constitution. The no camp, fearing that the drafting of the constitution would be dominated by Islamists with questionable allegiance to a civil state, went on the offensive, arguing that it would be far better for a constitution to be in place ahead of elections. Mohamed El-Baradei, a stanch constitution- firster, was quick to comment on the Tunisian experience. "Hats off to the Tunisian people for choosing the logical and direct path to democracy," he tweeted on 23 October. Tunisia, argued many others on Twitter and Facebook, chose "constitution first" to international acclaim. Amr El-Shobaki, a senior analyst at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, wrote in Al-Masry Al-Youm that Tunisia -- "more professional than Egypt" because of its high literacy rate -- "arranged its priorities in the natural order and started with the constitution first". But is it really so clear cut? On Twitter political activist Wael Khalil questioned whether events in Tunisia could be reduced to a constitution/elections first dichotomy. "Tunisians went to vote first... then they will write their constitution," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. The point he is making is that while Tunisians might not have been voting for a new legislature, they did go to the polls. The Islamist Al-Nahda won at least 40 per cent of the votes, making it the largest bloc in the 217- member assembly charged with writing the new constitution. It begs an obvious question: if Egyptians had to directly elect their constitutional assembly and the Islamists, as per predictions, won a majority, how does this quell secularist fears? While critics of the Egyptian plan praise the Tunisian model they have avoided any consideration of the details that shaped the differences in the two countries' transitional phases. After Bin Ali's ouster a civilian government was able to take over because the military had remained in its barracks. In Egypt it was the SCAF that pressured Mubarak to step down. The SCAF's 10 February meeting, without the then-president, which ended with communiqué number one which described the nationwide protests as "legitimate", was in fact a low-key coup. The generals took over after forcing Mubarak out and have been in control ever since. Ben Ali fled the country without the military's intervention, allowing for the government to take over. Not that the fact they were civilian saved either of Tunisia's post-Bin Ali governments from their share of criticism and, in some cases, public loathing. Intissar Kharigi, a Tunisian legal expert, describes in a column on Al-Jazeera's website how Tunisia's road to elections was as twisted and uncertain as Egypt's. "Every trick in the book has been deployed to prevent these elections taking place -- from threatening chaos and coups to delaying the elections and even proposing a referendum to significantly restrict the role of the new legislature." In Tunisia not a single police officer has been charged with the killing of protesters, and the judiciary and media are in a sorry state, reeling beneath the legacy of two decades of Bin Ali's despotic and corrupt regime. In Egypt the judiciary and media are in no better shape but at least Mubarak, his sons and many ex- ministers, including the former prime minister, are languishing in prison. The Al-Nahda Party and its articulate leadership suffered over 20 years of exile in Europe. They've been compared to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose leaders appear uncertain about their commitment to democracy and willingness to accept the other, and the outcome has not been flattering for the latter. Al-Nahda's Rachid El-Ghannushi has clearly stated his party's position on personal freedoms, making it clear there will be no bans or dress codes imposed. Egypt's Islamists tend to avoid such subjects altogether. But if Al-Nahda's leadership is moderate, Tunisia experts know all too well that the party's base, the young generation which lived under Bin Ali's dictatorship while its leaders were in exile, is more hardline. The opposite is true with the Brotherhood. Members of its youth cadres emerged as some of the revolution's heroes. Many of them have left the organisation to form their own moderate parties. Mubarak's officials were quick to announce, following Bin Ali's flight, that "Egypt is not Tunisia". Egyptians proved them wrong then, at least in terms of their distaste for the status quo. But Egypt isn't Tunisia. And one difference -- ignored by those currently promoting the Tunisian model -- is that when the constitution is finally written it will be put to the Egyptian public to have the final say in a referendum, something that will not happen in Tunisia.
