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3. Authoritarianism and Civil Society in Tunisia
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32 3. AUTHORITARIANISM AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN TUNISIA CHRISTOPHER ALEXANDER A disturbing rumor made the rounds during the summer of 1997 at the Cafe de Paris, the Hotel Africa and the other haunts of Tunisia’s classe politique. Word had it that a constitutional commission was considering legislation allowing the government to revoke the citizenship rights of some political opponents. True or not, the rumor’s existence-and the widespread belief that the government started it—said much about political life on the tenth anniversary of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s “tranquil revolution.” Ben Ali’s November 7, 1987 coup inaugurated the heady period of political reform that swept across the Middle East and North Africa in the late 1980s. The new president promised to establish the rule of law, to respect human rights and to implement the kind of democratic political reforms that Habib Bourguiba had steadfastly refused. Along with Algeria, Jordan, and Yemen, Tunisia rode the leading edge of what many hoped would be a wave of democratic transitions in the region. Ten years later, it would be difficult to find another country that has moved so far in the opposite direction. Back from the Democratic Brink That Tunisia stood at the forefront of political reform in the late 1980s came as no surprise to many observers. Since the 1960s, scholars had held up the small country as one of the region’s best hopes for democratic politics. Tunisia’s tradition of reform and openness, its Western-oriented elite and its progressive social policies suggested the kind of trajectory that would culminate sooner or later in multiple political parties, competitive elections, and respect for human rights. Moreover, state and society in Tunisia had developed what the historian Mohamed Hedi Cherif describes as a unique form of “self-regulation.” During periods of economic or political crisis, Tunisians accepted a strong state that intervenes to restore order and prosperity. But that state also generated countervailing social forces that kept it in check when it became too powerful.1 Against this backdrop, the prospects for political reform under Ben Ali seemed good. If the president balked at his democratic promises, Tunisia possessed the kind of muscular civil society that would force him to follow through. During his first year in power, Ben Ali seemed bent on establishing himself as the country ’s most dedicated reformer. He amnestied thousands of political prisoners, revamped Bourguiba’s Parti Socialiste Destourien (PSD) into the Rassemblement Constitutionel 33 TUNISIA | AUTHORITARIANISM AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN TUNISIA Démocratique (RCD),abolished the state security court and the presidency for life,reformed laws governing pretrial detention and ratified the United Nations’convention on torture.Ben Ali also supported new legislation that made it easier to form associations and parties, and he negotiated a National Pact with the country’s principal social and political organizations. By late 1988, however, the bloom had begun to fade. Ben Ali refused to legalize alNahda , the country’s largest Islamist organization even though the party pledged to accept the rules of competitive democracy.And despite opposition demands for proportional legislative elections,the 1989 electoral code maintained the old majority list system.Those rules, combined with restrictions on media access and other interferences,allowed Ben Ali’s RCD to win every seat in the April 1989 elections. Those elections marked the end of Ben Ali’s honeymoon and the beginning of Tunisia’s slide into deeper authoritarianism. Angered by their exclusion from parliament despite strong support for their candidates who ran as independents, al-Nahda activists intensified protests at the university and in working class neighborhoods. The government, in turn, stepped up its repression against al-Nahda and the Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party. Late-night raids and house-to-house searchers became commonplace in some neighborhoods . Stories of torture under interrogation and military court convictions multiplied.2 The campaign to crush al-Nahda intensified in 1991 following an attack on an RCD office in the Bab Souika area of Tunis and after the government claimed that security forces had uncovered a plot to topple the regime. Susan Waltz reported that the government’s extensive dragnet hauled in more than eight thousand individuals between 1990 and 1992.3 Most Tunisians tolerated the government’s repression. As the press never ceased to remind them, a vigorous economy that could generate new jobs depended on Tunisia’s ability to attract foreign investment in a competitive regional environment. Ben Ali and other officials pointed to Algeria and Egypt...