The Arab Spring’s First Elected President – Almost

By Kacem Jlidi

Moncef Marzouki

January 14^th, Ben Ali fled the country bringing an end to 55 years of dictatorship since the French occupation. Today, December 12^th, Tunisia is having a new president: Moncef Marzouki , a Human Rights activist and leader of the secular center-left Congress for the Republic (CPR) party; making him the third President in the history of the Tunisian Republic, and the first president democratically elected in the post-revolution era.

The Constituent Assembly of Tunisia, a body elected on October 23^rd to govern the country and draft a new constitution, elected Marzouki as the President of the Tunisian Republic, with 155 votes for, 3 against, and 42 blank votes. Blank votes were the result of a boycott from the opposition parties, who considered the new mini constitution of the country as an undemocratic one.

His appointment follows a week of animated debate within the Constituent Assembly focused on the formation of Tunisia’s provisional constitution.

The Constituent Assembly had opened the floor last week for presidential candidacy according to the conditions of interim law related to the powers’ division which indicates that the Tunisian President must fulfill the following conditions: “To be a Tunisian Muslim, non-carrier of a foreign nationality, born to a Tunisian Father and Mother and to be an adult of 35 years old at least”.

The adopted constitution, containing 26 articles, is being called the “mini-constitution,” and it delineates the roles and entitlements of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of the interim government. The document will expire following the administration of general elections, potentially within the year.

It should be highlighted here that the Congress for the Republic, has came second in the October 23^rd votes, collecting 29 seats out of 217 seats at the Constituent Assembly had made a coalition with the first comer Ennahda Islamist Party and the 3^rd comer Ettakatol led by Mustfa Ben Jaafer, currently the head of the Constituent Assembly.

What makes the presidential appointment not such a happy news for the Tunisians, even though many claims that he has a clean past is that the coalition in the constituent assembly’s majorities: Ennahda with 89 seats, CPR with 29 seats and Ettakatol with 20 seats had agreed already to appoint Moncef Marzouki as a president.

The voting requires a 50%+1 results while the coalition enjoys a fair majority not be annoyed with that rule.

With the Constituent Assembly led by Ettakatol’s leader Musfa Ben Jaafer and the country presidential gone for the CPR’s leader Moncef Marzouki; it’s now presumed that he will appoint Hamadi Jebali from the Ennahda Islamist movement tomorrow. The late will be in charge of announcing the composition of the cabinet.

Myriam, a Tunisian student studying Political Sciences in Paris summed up the discontent of MArzouki’s appointment in the following tweet which translates to: “interim government is limited by no frame of time, the executive board is not elected and the constitution isn’t proposed for a referendum. Welcome to democracy”.

Tweet by @MyriamAT

Moncef Marzouki:

He was born 7 July 1945, 66 years old. He studied medicine at the University of Strasbourg (France). Returning to Tunisia in 1979, he founded the Center for Community Medicine in Sousse and the African Network for Prevention of Child Abuse, also joining Tunisian League for Human Rights.

When the government cracked down violently on the Islamist Ennahda Movement in 1991, Marzouki confronted Tunisian President Ben Ali calling on him to adhere to the law.

In 1993, Marzouki was a founding member of the National Committee for the Defense of Prisoners of Conscience, but he resigned after it was taken over by supporters of the government. He was arrested on several occasions on charges relating to the propagation of false news and working with banned Islamist groups.

He subsequently founded the National Committee for Liberties. He became President of the Arab Commission for Human Rights and as of 17 January 2011continues as a member of its Executive Board.

In 2001, he founded the Congress for the Republic party. This was banned in 2002, but Marzouki moved to France and continued running it. (Wikipedia).

Occupy Bardo

On October 23, Tunisians voted. A majority of the Constitutional Assembly seats were secured by the Moderate Islamist Party, Ennahda. Some argue that despite the glorious number of 90% of voters’ turnout – still they represent only 51.7% of the total number of potential voters, using this to criticise the legitimacy of Ennahda’s representation of the average Tunisian. Others – including Sofiane Chourabi, founder of the Political Consciousness Association in Tunisia, for example -  go so far as to say that the revolution was spearheaded by jobless and ‘leftist’ people calling for an end to unemployment and social injustices, before the Islamists jumped on the bandwagon.

It all started on November 22, as the freshly elected deputies met for their first parliamentary assembly, when families of the martyrs of the revolution gathered with some citizens outside the parliament carrying signs to remind people about the objectives of the revolution. By November 30, what was perfectly evident on the Tunisian street was the emergence of a remarkable ideological split in ranks that had remained united throughout all the trauma of the overthrow of the Ben Ali regime. It started with a call for a general mobilization launched by the Doustourna network, a political organization led by Jawhar Ben Mbarek, a professor of constitutional law.

The call, so far signed by twenty civil organizations, comes from many representatives of the unemployed in the mining regions of Tunisia (Gafsa and elsewhere); activists of the General Union of Tunisian Students(UGET); political parties and independent citizens. It states:

“Given the nature of the public powers’ provisional rule and the National Constitutional Assembly’s ground rules which threaten the country’s democratic processes and open the way to the installation of a new dictatorship… we call upon all political powers, civil societies and all citizens to join our movement of protest…”

The protest, which has taken the form of a six-day sit-in and counting, aims at putting pressure on members of the national constituent assembly to accomplish the goals of the revolution, through the achievement of eleven measures.

1. The immediate waiver of the proposed laws concerning the organization of the temporary public powers in the Constituent Assembly, which represents a basis for a new dictatorship  concentrated around a single party which will dominate proceedings without collaboration  with others and control all the state’s assets and its powers: legislative, executive, judicial, administrative and media.

2. Immediate change to the proposed laws for the internal workings of the National Constituent Assembly, imposing a 2/3 majority on all its decisions and the obligation to submit the text of the draft constitution to a national referendum for the establishment of a real democracy through the participation of the voters.

3. Adoption of a majority (50% +1) to give a vote of confidence to the government and the same majority (50% +1) for withdrawing confidence.

4. Live broadcasting of the National Constituent Assembly and its committees, publishing texts /minutes from the meetings to all citizens.

5. Immediate and fair trial of the killers of the Tunisian martyrs and the rehabilitation of everyone injured during the revolutionary process (financially and morally).

6. Establish mechanisms to ensure regional development and the equitable distribution of wealth.

7. An immediate response to all requests for legitimate employment in all the regions of the country and a review of the results of the recruitment examination for the Gafsa phosphate company (CPG).

8. Purge the judiciary system of the symbols of corruption as an essential condition for the independence of the judiciary.

9. Immediate measures to deal comprehensively with administrative, financial and political corruption, which is still endemic at all levels of the state apparatus.

10. Suspension of foreign debt payments.

11. Commitment of the National Constituent Assembly to include in the next constitution a ban on any normalization of relations with the Zionist government of Israel.

Even though the claims have nothing to do with religion or any kind of personal beliefs; the sit-in taking place next to the Constituent Assembly in the Bardo area is annoying to the Ennahda supporters. Almost every night these protesters have been subject to aggressive acts of one kind or another. Counter-protesters threw rocks and attempted to destroy protesters’ tents, reported Monji Bhouri, a blogger from Tunis.

’Bardo 1’ demonstrators face off with Islamist counter-demo

On December 3, the street where the sit-in is taking place became packed full of people demonstrating in what might yet become a historic reckoning. On one side of the street, there are the Ennahda and Ettahrir (a Salafist party) supporters and also many teenagers from the local neighbourhood, all raising slogans in favour of their parties and such Islamic customs as the adoption of the Niqab. These slogans are a rewrite of soccer chants. Monji Bhouri said, “Those participants who call themselves pro-Islam haven’t shown much behaviour worthy of the name – they do nothing but  taunt, insult and even physically attack the real democracy activists”.

On the other side of the road, slightly fewer pro-democracy activists chose not to engage in a fight with their provokers. Instead they turned their backs, facing the constituent assembly’s building and refused to move despite the injuries caused by the stone-throwing. The Tunisian media have congratulated the Tunisian security forces for maintaining a neutral role and ensuring the protection of these protesters later on in the proceedings.

A woman bleeding from a Salafist attack

“We’re here to express our opinion. If the other side has something to say, they too are free to do so, but the fear is that they are here to stop us from expressing our opinion” says Jawhar Ben Mbarek. “We’re protesting peacefully to demand transparency and prevent the birth of a new dictatorship. The violent attacks are the same methods used by the Ben Ali regime. We resisted them before and we shall continue to resist them,” added Ben Mbarek.

Ennahda leaders issued a statement asking their supporters not to join the sit-in.

This violent uprising of Ennahda supporters might be influenced by the late ban of a college girl wearing a Niqab from sitting for her exam. The university dean was made the victim of verbal insults and physical attack. Ennahda expressed its support for the right of the Educational Institution’ to make its own decisions, but called for universities to steer clear of ideological and political debates.

I join many fellow-Tunisians in a sense of frustration at the quality of the international media coverage of this Bardo sit-in. These reports tend to reduce the protest to a confrontation between Islamists and Secularists, ignoring the true demands of those who have taken the decision to sit-in.

By Kacem Jlidi. Appeared on Open Democracy and EMAJ Magazine