Democracy, Tunisian style
Tunisia has been praised as peaceful and competitive, but its
next election will have little to do with democracy
By Brian Whitaker
The Guardian, Wednesday 9 September 2009
Tunisia is the most peaceful country in Africa, according to the latest
Global Peace Index. It is also the top
African country in the World Economic Forum's
Global Competitiveness Index.
The news has clearly delighted the Tunisian government.
"These new rankings reflect the political stability enjoyed by Tunisia and
the depth of the social dimension of its economic policy over the past two
decades," it said in a statement
reproduced on the Isria website. "They
provide further evidences that strengthen the singularity of the Tunisian model
and the correctness of its national choices, one of the foundations of which
rests in the close correlation between the political, economic and social
dimensions..."
But let's look more closely at the "correctness" of Tunisia's national
choices.
Despite some important achievements in the field of women's rights, Tunisia
has one of the Arab world's most repressive regimes. It generally escapes
criticism by keeping out of international conflicts and dressing up its
political system to look vaguely democratic.
President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali is also rather smart. He seized power in
1987 – not through a military coup but by strictly legal means. Just five weeks
after becoming prime minister he had President Bourguiba declared medically
unfit for office (which indeed he was) and then stepped into his shoes as
ordained by the constitution.
In 2004 he stood for re-election,
trouncing three other candidates with
94.5% of the votes – an incredible victory that is not readily attributable to
his popularity.
He is due to be re-elected again next month and is able – more or less – to
choose which candidates will compete against him. The only people allowed to
stand are the general secretaries of political parties approved by Ben Ali.
One would-be candidate has already
pulled out because of "the absence of
minimal conditions of freedom, of honesty and transparency" in the campaign.
Another candidate, Ahmed Brahim of the Ettajdid Movement, has
accused the authorities of impeding
distribution of his party's newspaper and obstructing some of its other
activities. He said the party had to cancel three meetings in a single week
after the authorities pressurised hotels in Tunis to prevent them from renting
space.
Meanwhile, Ben Ali says he is eager to ensure "good conduct" in the electoral
process and has
set up a special committee to monitor
it. All the committee's members are said to be either members of Ben Ali's party
or close to it.
Of course, it helps to have the media on board too. Yesterday, following a
court order, police
evicted independent members of the
journalists' union from their building so that a new (government-backed) board
could move in.
This was the culmination of a battle that began last May when, on the
occasion of
World Press Freedom Day, the National
Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists criticised the state of press freedom in the
country.
Three pro-government members of the union's board resigned in protest at the
criticism and organised a "no-confidence" petition seeking to oust the remainder
of the union's leadership.
Union members were then pressurised into supporting the petition,
according to a report from the Committee
to Protect Journalists at the time:
"Either you sign the petition or take the risk of losing your job,"
Bghouri [the now-ousted union president] told CPJ. "Privately owned media
are pressuring their journalists to sign the petition for fear of being
deprived of public support and advertising revenue." In Tunisia, advertising
is selectively granted by the Tunisian Agency for External Communication to
newspapers aligned with the government.
At a
special congress last month the union's
members did what was required of them and elected a new pro-government
leadership.
Editor's note: this article was amended at 19.50 BST on 9 September to make
clear that the Isria website merely reproduced the Tunisian government's
statement as part of its diplomatic intelligence service and does not endorse
its contents.
