Tunisia has passed yet another test on the long road to
democratic consolidation. The election on Baji Caid Essebsi as the first freely
elected president of Tunisia comes at the heels of his party’s legislative
victory last month. Indeed, these have been two glorious months for Essebsi’s
Nida’ Tounes, and for Tunisians’ path towards setting democratic, peaceful
transition of power amidst the abysmal failure of the Arab uprisings. In purely democratic fashion, The 88
year-old Essebsi received a concession from former interim president Moncef Marzouki,
and pledged to be inclusionary of the different political movements in Tunisia.
Essebsi’s majoritarian victory is not one of democracy against
Islamism as some may suggest. The two aren’t mutually exclusive and such
dichotomy is reductionist and essentialist. Islamists are not monolithic and
most of them are committed to democratic principles. Essebsi and Nida’ Tounes’s
electoral triumph (Essebsi's 55.68% to, interim president, Moncef Marzouki’s 44.32%) is
simply a statement of whom the Tunisians electorate entrust at this particular juncture with the colossal task
of economic and political development in the country.
Nida’ Tounes and Essebsi now control both the executive and
legislative branches of government. This presents tremendous challenges for the secular octogenarian Essebsi, and his secular party to deliver where the defeated Islamist Ennahda failed. In particular, Tunisia’s new
leadership has now a complete mandate to tackle security issues and reinvigorate the flailing
economy. Furthermore, Essebsi, a former interior minister in the repressive Bourguiba era, and speaker of the parliament during Ben Ali’s autocratic state, is now a legitimate
custodian of this transition, and has to work to further entrench democratic
political practices and governance.
While free, fair, and competitive, last week’s elections do
not signal that democracy is the “only game in town” in Tunisia yet. Tunisia’s
institutions must be imbued with mechanisms for inter-institutional
accountability, especially when it comes to building an independent judiciary.
Without such strong foundations for horizontal accountability and rule of law,
Tunisia’s nascent political experiment will never fully succeed as a truly
democratic state, and could risk devolving into more of a Latin American model
of delegative democracies, whereby electorally-chosen presidents ushered in a tradition strong presidentialist systems, and wielding greater
power than other branches of government, amidst absent patterns of
representation. Tunisia must steer away from South American presidencialismo, and institute a genuine system of institutional checks and balances.
Tunisia has so far shown great attitudinal and constitutional proclivity towards the democratic process. Tunisians increasingly believe that political change must be performed within democratic parameters. Government and non-government forces have shown, even with the Islamists of Ennahda, that the resolution of political conflicts is negotiated through pacts, democratic laws, and institutions. It behooves Tunisia’s new political elite to further consolidate legal and political institutions, and to strive to keep Tunisia as the only ray of hope in the maelstrom of the post-Arab uprisings.
Tunisia has so far shown great attitudinal and constitutional proclivity towards the democratic process. Tunisians increasingly believe that political change must be performed within democratic parameters. Government and non-government forces have shown, even with the Islamists of Ennahda, that the resolution of political conflicts is negotiated through pacts, democratic laws, and institutions. It behooves Tunisia’s new political elite to further consolidate legal and political institutions, and to strive to keep Tunisia as the only ray of hope in the maelstrom of the post-Arab uprisings.