European Forum

AMS and European Forum working visit to Tunisia

The Alfred Mozer Stichting, together with the European Forum for Democracy and Solidarity organised a small fact-finding visit on the 27th of April, tied to the PES Euromed conference in Tunis on the 28th and 29th of April.

The delegation, consisting of the European Forum Vice-President Jan Marinus Wiersma, AMS board member Lo Breemer, and project manager Marina Ohanjanyan, met with representatives of Tunisian political parties, the civil society, and international organisations present on the ground, to get a clear picture of the situation at the moment and how it might develop in the near and not-so-near future.

Party building
Tunisia is facing the daunting task of building a new political system practically from scratch, while at the same time preparing for elections of the Constitutional Assembly, tasked with passing a new Constitution which will then face a national referendum. Once the Constitution is adopted, elections will be announced (parliamentary and possibly presidential).

A crowd of new parties have sprung up (over 50 since the revolution), that have to build their structure while at the same time preparing for elections, and the older, established parties have to adapt to the new situation and show the people of Tunisia that they can bring something new to the table.

Dangers
At the same time there are the thousands of people formerly affiliated with former President Ben Ali’s party, the RCD, that have to reinvent themselves to reintegrate in society. Whether they will do so, or instead undermine the process to protect their – still existing – (economic) interests is the big question.

The other question is the role of Islam in the until now relatively secular Tunisian society. Under Ben Ali, political expressions of Islam – and to some extent Islam itself – were harshly repressed. With the new-found freedom, many Tunisians are seeking to finally express their religion. However, in the society with a significant middle class and a majority of highly educated youths, some fear that the Islamic party(ies) will reverse some of the freedoms that have come with secularism, especially for women. The main Islamic party, Ennahda, however, claims to be a democratic party that seeks, first and foremost, basic freedoms and individual rights for everyone.

How the situation will evolve remains unclear, but two predictions that can be made are that the turnout for elections will be huge – this being the first time in a very long time that the people of Tunisia will have a real choice – and that Ennahda is likely to get somewhere between 20 and 30% of the vote.

The full report of the visit will be made available soon.