FYI
Building a Tunisian model for Arab democracy
Al Jazeera talks to President Moncef Marzouki, winner of the 2012 Chatham House
award as most influential statesperson.
Yasmine Ryan Last Modified: 27 Nov 2012 16:21
Moncef Marzouki receives the Chatham House award for his role in Tunisia's
transition [Chatham House]
Tunis, Tunisia - In a country still writhing with revolutionary sentiment and a
deep distrust of politicians, this country's president is no longer
bubble-wrapped in the comfort of unquestioning obedience from a subservient
population.
As a democrat and a human rights activist, Tunisia's President Moncef Marzouki
is an anomaly in a region accustomed to strongmen.
In depth
"All my life, I've been a doctor, a human rights activist, so I've been amongst
the people, I have spent time in prison and in exile," he said, arguing that he
would not allow himself to transformed by the halls of power.
"I've lived a real life, and I continue to live a real life."
The 67-year-old is also remarkable in his refusal to accept the deep
secular-Islamist divide that was the undoing of Algeria's would-be democratic
transition two decades ago - a schism now undermining the foundations of
Egypt's revolution. It is a choice that has earned him considerable criticism
from other secularists, including within his own movement.
"Those who criticise us for joining this coalition with Ennahdha [Tunisia's
Islamist party] don't say what the alternative would have been," he told Al
Jazeera.
As we begin our interview in the Presidential Palace in Carthage, torrential
rains hit the capital. The sky outside the palace window darkens, reflecting
the mood of many Tunisians, desperate for their leadership to solve problems
such as the rising price of living and high unemployment.
"Transitional years are very difficult," he said, the strain showing on his
face. "The pressures that have been placed on this government are considerable."
It was because of the potential for Tunisia to become a model - rather than an
exception - that the Royal Institute of International Affairs' Chatham House
Award presented Marzouki with their prestigious annual prize on Monday.
"As the first democratically elected Arab president and a life-long human
rights activist known all over the Arab world, Dr Marzouki has provided an
example for others in the region to follow," the institute said in a statement
published on its website.
Authoritarianism a 'disease'
The award comes nearly a year after he came to power, elected president by the
country's constituent assembly in a power-sharing deal between the centre-right
Ennahdha, Marzouki's centre-left Congress for the Republic (CPR) and
centre-left Ettakatol, a coalition known as the Troika.
Ennahdha's Hamadi Jebali might be prime minister, but it is Rachid Ghannouchi,
the joint recipient of the award, who remains the movement's philosopher and
its undisputed leader.
A former physician, Marzouki is adamant that authoritarianism is "a disease"
which must be treated.
Marzouki was also named by Foreign Policy magazine as the world's second most
influential thinker in 2012 in their annual list, published on Monday.
Alfred Stepan, a Columbia University expert in democratic transitions, said
Tunisia was emerging as the first genuine democracy in the Arab world since the
early 1970s.
"The possibility of democracy in Tunisia is very interesting," he said, arguing
that Marzouki and Ghannouchi deserved the award because of the success of their
political transition, compared with Egypt, Libya or Syria.
"It will be really sad for the world if Tunisia does not make the transition,
because many people will then say: 'I told you so, Arabs can never have a
democracy.'"
Strange bedfellows
Marzouki's alliance with Ennahdha is often portrayed by his critics as
motivated by political opportunism, allowing him to ride on the party's
coat-tails to power. Ennahdha won 89 out of 217 seats in the October 2011
election, while Marzouki's CPR came in second with just 29.
He said, however, that rather than being personally motivated, the alliance was
born out of a shared commitment to establishing a free and democratic political
system, bringing together what he describes as moderate secularists and
moderate Islamists.
Moncef Marzouki en route for Sidi Bouzid on January 18, 2011, the day he
returned from exile in France [Yasmine Ryan/Al Jazeera]
"The Troika did not come into existence after the election, it was prepared for
a very very long time, over a period of 20 years," he said.
Anti-authoritarianism has indeed been a consistent feature of Marzouki's
trajectory. He travelled to India in his youth to learn more about Mahatma
Gandhi's peaceful resistance, and to South Africa in the early 1990s to study
the transition from apartheid.
In his time as president of the Tunisian League for Human Rights, he came
head-to-head with Ben Ali, when he denounced the then-president's brutality
towards Islamists.
He then took his opposition a step further, daring to challenge Ben Ali in the
1994 presidential election.
The electoral bid was an act of civil disobedience, he said.
"It was to protest the fact that a citizen had the right to run only in theory.
In practice, it was viewed as blasphemy."
It led to his imprisonment - he was released only after intervention by Nelson
Mandela - and subsequent exile in France.
Red lines
Marzouki reached out to Ghannouchi, who had first sought refuge form Ben Ali
regime's repression in Algeria, an experience which led him to likewise favour
political pluralism and to eschew political violence, and who was by that time
living in exile in the UK.
The two men, though representing very different political ideologies, began a
series of discussions that culminated in the Islamist movement joining others
in the "Call of Tunis" agreement, signed in Aix-en-Provence in 2003.
The basis of Ennahdha's inclusion was three key pledges: the equality of men
and women, that the state would remain based in civic society rather than
theology, and that it would be a democracy.
"For Ennahdha to be part of the [democratic] front, we needed reassurance about
what they intended to do afterwards," Marzouki said.
The Troika has not been without its challenges. The biggest to date came in
June, when Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali of Ennahdha extradited Mahmoud
al-Baghdadi to Tripoli.
Marzouki had strongly objected to the extradition of Baghdadi, Libya's prime
minister under Muammar Gaddafi, without a guarantee of a fair trial.
Jebali's act, widely viewed as a successful attempt to undermine Marzouki's
authority, led to the president being mocked on social media as a tartour
["puppet"].
Marzouki wrote a resignation letter, but was encouraged by those close to him
not to resign because the country would likely be plunged into crisis as a
result.
Instead, the president took his case to the administrative court, which in
November found Jebali to have acted illegally.
"The administrative court has ruled in favour of the presidency; that Mahmoud
[al-Baghdadi] should not have been extradited," Marzouki said.
He said he continues to follow the case closely - Libya's prime minister is
next appearing in court on December 10.
Marzouki's critics accuse him of naivety for trusting Ennahdha to stick to the
agreed rules, arguing Ennahdha was "a wolf in sheep's clothing", pointing to
the movement's ultra-conservative faction.
But Marzouki rejected these assertions, arguing that, to the contrary, the
coalition was about moderate secularists working with moderate Islamists to
guarantee basic liberties were protected from extremists on either side of the
political spectrum.
"Our alliance with Ennahdha is a political one, and we have non-negotiable red
lines," he said.
Holding together
Differing perspectives on the menace posed to Tunisian society by a small but
vocal number of "Salafist-jihadist" activists has caused reportedly caused
tension between Ghannouchi and Marzouki in recent months.
After Marzouki criticised Ghannouchi for what appeared to be conciliatory
comments made to Salafist leaders in a video leaked to media, the Ennahdha
leader publically rebuked him, saying that he had only been elected with the
support of his party.
But the president remains firm that his party would only maintain its alliance
if its partner does not give in to pressure from its ultra-conservative fringe
to renege on any of the ground rules.
"For now, this [coalition] deal still stands and it's up to Ennahdha to remain
cohesive and to resolve its internal problems," Marzouki said.
In spite of the tensions, Stepan said that the fact that former opposition
politicians, notably Marzouki, Ghannouchi and Ettakatol's Mustafa Ben Jaafar,
began laying the foundations for the coalition government in 2003 and even
earlier, establishing the new rules of the game, had meant progress had been
relatively smooth in the months following the uprising.
"I think this collaboration between Islamist and secularist parties around
common democratic values is to be acknowledged and celebrated," he said, noting
that for five decades, Tunisia had been ruling by a secular authoritarian
regime.
"Nothing like [the consensus between Islamist and secularist politicians],
zero, has been done in Egypt, up until today. That is why Egypt is in a much
more precarious state than Tunisia."
You can follow Yasmine Ryan on Twitter: @yasmineryan
Source:
Al Jazeera
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