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| Africa North |
| Tunisia's avoidable political error |
| 2015-02-04 |
| [SAUDIGAZETTE.SA] Unlike blood-soaked Syria and unlike its riven and anarchic neighbor Libya, Tunisia has survived its revolution relatively unscathed. The transition to a pluralist society has owed much to the wisdom of the moderate Islamist party Ennahda, which has been prepared to compromise to produce workable governments and a constitution. Last October Ennahda won only 69 seats in a parliamentary election against 85 to a secular grouping called Nida Tunis. Two months later, after a generally good-humored campaign, Nida Tunis founder Beji Caid Essebsi won the presidency. The remarkably sprightly 89-year-old Essebsi asked his party colleague Habib Essid to put together a government. Now despite the success of its transition from autocracy, through the drafting of a new constitution and the holding of the general and presidential elections at the end of last year, it is widely appreciated that the country's youthful new politics is probably not strong enough for the confrontational rough and tumble of two party politicking, as found for instance in Australia or London's Houses of Parliament. The assumption among many Tunisians was that what would emerge would be a coalition cabinet which included Ennahda. It was therefore a shock when last week, the prime minister-elect unveiled a government that was exclusively drawn from his own party. The response from the Islamist politicians and many moderate Ennahda supporters was immediate and angry. Within hours Essid had gone back to the drawing board and on Monday produced a coalition cabinet, which included an Ennahda minister of labor and three junior ministerial jobs in finance, health and investment. The mystery is that Essid ever imagined that his first all-Nida cabinet pick was going to work. This was a political error that suggested that the prime minister-elect has misjudged the mood in the country and was no longer thinking in terms of compromise and accommodation with political opponents. Just as worryingly, there must now be questions about President Essebsi. Did the head of state encourage Essid in the attempt to keep Islamists out of the government or if he counseled against the strategy, was he ignored? By not seeking to work with Ennahda from the outset, Essid has deepened the suspicions that already exist among some Islamist politicians. There may yet be a political price to be paid for this political mistake. Ennahda may rightly enjoy a reputation for moderation but there are some on the fringes of the party who have little patience with the respect that it is paying the new pluralist political process. What has been described locally as "the Morsi tendency" is clearly present among some supporters. |
| Posted by:Fred |