If the Arab Spring was the harbinger of change for Tunisia and its neighbours Egypt and Libya, then signs of another transformation – for full-fledged democracy – are hard to miss in the region. Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of Tunisia’s Ennahda party has been at the forefront of engineering a grand ruling coalition that could usher in a stable democratic government in the future. His optimism is infectious, and he expects his country to be “the birthplace of Arab democracy,” after being the progenitor of Arab Spring. In fact, Tunisia has shown the Middle East that Islamists can run a government, hand in hand, with the secularists.
The tussle between Islamist hardliners and secular socialists has been a perennial struggle for the last 50 years in many Arab nations, including Yemen and Bahrain, apart from Tunisia itself. But nowhere else has a reconciliation been possible between these two ideological adversaries, other than in Tunisia. In the latest political breakthrough, Ghannouchi and his party have laid down the roadmap for the formation of a new political coalition, which will have elements from both moderate Islamist and socialist wings. The country now has a stake in shaping the political destiny of the Middle East and North Africa by setting a new benchmark for governance in the region.
Tunisia is working towards drafting a new Constitution, which will act as the edifice for supporting the pillars of permanent democracy. However, the Constitution is still a work in progress, a tedious process that has stretched on for the past 16 months and has been mired in skepticism and controversies raked up not only by domestic lawmakers but also by international human rights watchdogs. There have been accusations that Tunisians lawmakers were sidestepped in the process and the draft largely reflects the interests of ruling parties.
If indeed Tunisia succeeds in establishing a proper democratic set-up, it will mark a tectonic shift in the political structure of the entire Middle East. That could prove to be very unsettling for the reigning monarchs in the region. Already, many ruling establishments in the region are feeling discomfited by the developments unfolding in Tunisia. To preempt the possibility of such a development breaking in their own backyard, the monarchs of Saudi Arabia and other smaller Gulf states have already started granting concessions to their people by reorganizing their representation in the government, giving people a wider platform for participation in governance, and by further strengthening their relationship with religious groups and clergymen.
However, it would be foolhardy to think of democracy as the silver bullet that will end the long festering problems in the region. Social, economic and political problems are often accentuated and even come to a head when countries make the transition to democracy. Numerous examples around the world show this to be true. When countries such as Pakistan, Russia, Brazil and a number of sub-Saharan states took to democracy, their problems on the economic, social and political fronts worsened sharply before witnessing a gradual amelioration. And Tunisia is no aberration. The Arab Spring has already brought the country to the brink with its faltering economy, rising disaffection among the very sections of people who were the cheerleaders of the Arab Spring movement, and growing extremism by the Islamist Salafist groups. The S&P Index has already downgraded the country’s bonds to junk status, effectively choking off all foreign investments; unemployment rate is at a steep 17% currently and rising further, the tourism industry, which is the mainstay of the economy (contributing to more than 15% of the country’s employment) is at its ebb with only 10% hotel occupancy.
In a sign of economic desperation, the government has been packing off youths to menial jobs in public sector enterprises. This has only helped to bloat the country’s budget deficit to 6.6% of the GDP. To compensate for this profligacy, the government has sought to bring the fuel subsidy down by raising fuel price twice in the last couple years. But this has only caused further public resentment, triggering off protests across the nation.
Given the myraid problems that Tunisia is grappling with, it needs to fully understand that a transition to democracy is always a fraught journey. And probably, it is easier to choose democracy than to sustain it and make it run smoothly to maturity.
