Why does democracy have a shot in Tunisia? Less money.
| Tunis, Tunisia
Everything seemed possible in early 2011.聽For millions of North Africans, the 2011 Arab uprisings offered a rare opportunity to transform their countries. For Western governments and institutions, they were a chance to ensure that troublesome dictators across the region were replaced with friendly democracies.
But for all its battalions, money, and good intentions, the West鈥檚聽influence has聽proven starkly limited. In places, support for democratic change has clashed with the designs of interim leaders. Where it has made progress, it has done so in small steps, and largely because leaders have decided to play ball.
Egypt has become a showcase of Western impotence.聽Despite receiving $1.3 billion yearly in US military aid, Egypt鈥檚 generals have brushed aside American complaints at their July overthrow of the government, apparently emboldened by $12 billion pledged that month by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.
The surge of Gulf largesse highlights a key contrast between Egypt and Tunisia, where the uprisings began.聽Unlike Tunisia, Egypt has loads of strategic value. Egyptian democrats and their Western partners have faced stiff opposition to their attempts to shape the country鈥檚 future.
In Tunisia, Western institutions have enjoyed unrivaled intimacy with interim leaders. The country鈥檚 democratic transition is incomplete, but is so far the most promising.
Cashing in on democracy
In the weeks after former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted in January 2011, an interim government reached out to the World Bank, African Development Bank, and European Union, requesting loans and cash to support the state budget, plus policy advice, in return for steady progress on a mutually agreed reform agenda.
The three donors have given Tunisia about $2.5 billion so far in budget support. Yet the relationship goes beyond money, says Antonio Nucifora, the World Bank鈥檚 lead economist on Tunisia, who has worked closely with interim leaders. In fact, the country began its transition with decent cash reserves. What leaders lacked most acutely was experience.
An exception, says Mr. Nucifora, was Abdelhamid Triki.
A veteran administrator and technocrat, Mr. Triki was the only member of Mr. Ben Ali鈥檚 cabinet to remain in government. As interim minister of planning and international cooperation, he was crucial in forging a partnership with Western donors.
鈥淗e knew the international donors and he knew how to make use of us,鈥� says Nucifora. 鈥淗e was able to set the terms, but not in an arrogant way.鈥�
Tunisia鈥檚 government laid out a reform agenda, which the donors helped refine. They began with big measures, such as new laws on freedom of information and freedom of association, referring to civil society groups.聽
Ben Ali鈥檚 regime had tightly controlled public life, giving the new association law immense revolutionary importance. A commission of civic, political, and trade union leaders that served as an early interim legislature said it should聽handle the new law.
鈥淸They] told us basically to stay out of it; that it was highly political and not something the government could do,鈥� says Nucifora.
Instead, a compromise was reached. The donors paid for Swiss experts to advise the commission in drafting a law, which the government enacted.
The donors have also funded civil society groups, which are flourishing in Tunisia as never before.
鈥淐ivil society is a counterweight聽[to the state],鈥� says a European diplomat in Tunis who spoke on condition of anonymity. 鈥淲ho can defend freedom of expression, or an independent judiciary? Civil society.鈥�
One example is the Tunisian Association for Democratic Awakening (ATED), founded in March 2011 to help monitor coming elections for a constituent assembly. Armed with聽EU funding,聽the group trained over 4,000 volunteer election monitors around the country.
At dawn on Oct. 23, 2011, the group鈥檚 president, a self-effacing economic consultant named Rafik Halouani, was in their Tunis operations room with other staff, waiting for polls to open.聽At any moment, computers would light up with activity and phones would start to ring.
鈥淎t first, it was like the silence before聽a聽storm, and we felt a slight sense of fear,鈥� Mr. Halouani recalls.
Then updates from election monitors started to blip across computer screens as voting聽began, and apprehension gave way to excitement.
The 2011 elections聽created a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution and聽brought to power a new government led by the Islamist Ennahda party, which formed a coalition with two secularist parties. As efforts to build a new system progressed, Tunisia鈥檚 reform agenda evolved.
鈥淲e started moving from聽quicker, more聽emblematic reforms, to putting more fundamental measures on the agenda, especially in terms of economic transformation,鈥� says Nucifora.
However, donors say the government must work faster to overhaul restrictive laws on business, trade, banking, and investment that Ben Ali鈥檚 regime exploited to monopolize the economy.聽Doing so could help reverse an economic slump. And it would bring more profound renewal.
鈥淭he revolution that still has to take place is economic,鈥� says Jacob Kolster, North Africa director at the African Development Bank. 鈥淚t means creating as much freedom in the economic theater as in the political theater.鈥�
Missing a lever
Meanwhile in Egypt, the Feb. 2011 overthrow of former president Hosni Mubarak led to military rule, followed by legislative and presidential elections, both won by the Muslim Brotherhood's newly created Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). But while the army and the Brotherhood have voiced support for democratic transition, both have found ways to undermine it.
In Dec. 2011, military authorities shuttered the offices of prominent Egyptian and foreign NGOs.聽Egypt鈥檚 interim minister of international cooperation, a Mubarak-era holdover named Faiza Abou El-Naga, reportedly led the campaign against them.
In June, under the FJP, 43 NGO workers were convicted of operating and receiving foreign funding illegally. A new draft law on NGOs proposed last year has become steadily more repressive in rewrites, said Heba Morayef, Human Rights Watch鈥檚 Egypt researcher, in a聽June 11聽statement.
By July, anger over the Brotherhood鈥檚 high-handed style had reached fever pitch, and on聽July 3, Army leaders seized on mass protests to oust the Brotherhood. Several weeks later, security forces opened fire on pro-Brotherhood sit-ins, killing more than six hundred people. Western players that聽had聽showered Egypt in aid and loans have called in vain for democracy to be restored.
鈥淥ur aid isn鈥檛 really a lever at government level,鈥� says a European diplomat in Cairo, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Democracy disrupted
Back in Tunisia, secularist聽opposition parties took the Brotherhood鈥檚 fall as a cue to demand that the Ennahda party step down. The聽murder of an opposition politician triggered a political stand-off that has all but paralyzed the constituent assembly,聽delaying a new constitution.聽It鈥檚 unclear when fresh elections might be held.
Tunisians are increasingly pessimistic about democracy, unimpressed by their leaders, and fretting over economic malaise, says . While Tunisians no longer fear to speak their minds, courts still periodically use old laws to prosecute free speech offenses.
Yet while Egypt鈥檚 transition seems to have hit a wall, Tunisia鈥檚 may yet succeed. It has become an open society. While the government and opposition distrust one another, says Nucifora, they have argued and found compromise before, and the EU has urged them to try again.聽
In an unusual foray into Tunisia鈥檚 political debate, the EU also praised a 鈥渞oadmap鈥� proposed by the powerful General Union of Tunisian Workers that would put tight deadlines on drafting a constitution and scheduling elections, and calls on parties to agree on a caretaker cabinet of independents.
Then there are Tunisians like Mr. Halouani. He and ATED represent the degree to which ordinary people are now engaged in scrutinizing power. And their skills are growing.
鈥淣ow, we have the capacity to observe the entire electoral process from beginning to end,鈥� says Halouani. 鈥淐ampaigns, voter registration, things related to law.鈥�
They, like their country, are evolving.
Louisa Loveluck contributed reporting from Cairo.
