Contrast with Egypt
Just as Egypt's Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak initially courted the Islamists only to turn against them, members of Tunisia's Muslim Brotherhood-linked group Ennahda (founded in 1981, meaning Renaissance) were allowed to participate in the 1989 elections as independents and, despite blatant repression and vote rigging during the elections, garnered 17% of the vote. Ben Ali cynically used this show of electoral democracy two years later, when he imprisoned 25,000 of these publicly-declared supporters of Ennahda, and had its founder, Rachi al-Ghannouchi, tortured and sentenced to life imprisonment.
This betrayal lived on in the collective memory of Tunisians, leading to the historic 2011 uprising. Following the collapse of Ben Ali's regime, Ennahda won 89 of the 217 seats in the elections of October 2011 to lead a left-Islamic coalition government headed by Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, leader of Ennahda, and secularist President Moncef Marzouki, a former dissident exiled in France. Marzouki, author of Dictators on Watch: A Democratic Path for the Arab World, argued during the election campaign that progressive forces should unite with moderate Islamists in recognition of the importance of Islam in the Arab world, criticizing the "old left, secular and Francophone, and totally disconnected from the real problems of Tunisian society".
The new constitution, passed by the parliament in January 2014 (200-12 with 4 abstentions),
" makes Tunisia a decentralized and open government
" recognizes Islam as the official state religion, but protects freedom of belief
" provides for some restrictions on free speech, most notably in banning attacks on religion and accusations of being a non-believer
" provides for gender equality
" protects the nation's natural resources
" demands the government take steps to fight corruption.
" divides executive power between the president and prime minister.
There is in fact little difference between Tunisia's new constitution and that which was approved by two-thirds of Egyptians in December 2012 under its MB, which Egypt's hysterical secularists insisted would turn Egypt into an Islamic state. The different trajectories of events in Tunisia and Egypt have more to do with geopolitics--Tunisia is neither strategic nor oil-rich--and its weak army, than any substantive difference between the Islamists.
One step forward, two steps back?
Recent events have been a cause of criticism of the Tunisian Islamists for possibly undermining the initial gains of the uprising. To placate secularists, the MB-headed government resigned after the constitutional referendum, giving way to a caretaker government in December 2013 in preparation for parliamentary and presidential elections this autumn.
More disturbingly, virtually all those convicted for their crimes under the Ben Ali regime have been freed from prison (Ben Ali lives in luxury in Saudi Arabia). Five of the most senior officials of the former government were freed from prison recently, including Rafik Haj Kacem, the interior minister at the time of the revolution, and Ali Seriati, the powerful head of the presidential security service. An appeals courts reduced their sentences to time served.
Mohamed Ghariani, the former secretary general of Ben Ali's Constitutional Democratic Rally party, was released last summer and has returned to politics as an adviser to the current presidential front-runner, Beji Caid Essebsi. Ben Ali officials are no longer banned from running for political office. Virtually all police accused of murdering demonstrators were given suspended sentences or acquitted.
Ennahda's leaders accepted the judicial rulings, reasoning that to exclude opponents was destabilizing in the long run, and that it was better to let them face the test of the ballot box. "It is the Tunisians who will say we do not want to go back to the old regime. That is a much more clear and effective message," Ameur Larayedh, head of Ennahda's political bureau, said. The releases must also be seen in the context of Egypt's coup last year, which led to a massacre and outlawing of the MB by the military, egged on by the secularists.
Truth and Dignity Commission
However, Tunisia's MB-led government did manage to issue a "law on transitional justice" in its last days in office, prepared by the Ministry of Human Rights and Transitional Justice, setting up a 15-member Truth and Dignity Commission to hold hearings during the next five years to expose the repression of citizens since 1956. Special chambers will be set up to hear the most serious cases.
Sihem Bensedrine, a human rights activist and former journalist who heads the Commission, siad that the tens of thousands of cases of torture, rape and murders during 55 years of dictatorship would be investigated. The cases of martyrs of the revolution will be a priority. The main aim is to prevent any return to dictatorship. "To have a Seriati in prison is not sufficient for me. We want to show all the pieces of the machine, and show this is how you construct a dictatorship and this is how you deconstruct it," Bensedrine told the New York Times.
This starkly contrasts with Egypt, where not only have virtually all Mubarak-era officials escaped justice, but the new President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was the man behind the notorious virginity tests of protesters after 2011, allowing soldiers to effectively violate female protestors, solely in order to intimidate and humiliate them. Sisi is now portrayed by the reinvigorated secularists as their savior.
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