Some Lessons from the Downfall of Ben Ali
For twenty-three years, Zine el-Abedine Ben Ali ruled Tunisia with mixed success. On 14 January 2011, he left power amidst a popular uprising unprecedented in his country. Following nearly a month of mass protests across the country, and after scores of people had perished, Ben Ali tried unsuccessfully to calm down the tensions, including by sacking his whole cabinet and promising to step down in 2014, the end of his five-year term. He finally succumbed to popular pressure and sought refuge in Saudi Arabia.
Issaka K. Souaré, senior researcher African Conflict Prevention Programme, ISS Pretoria office
For twenty-three years, Zine el-Abedine Ben Ali ruled Tunisia with mixed success. On 14 January 2011, he left power amidst a popular uprising unprecedented in his country. Following nearly a month of mass protests across the country, and after scores of people had perished, Ben Ali tried unsuccessfully to calm down the tensions, including by sacking his whole cabinet and promising to step down in 2014, the end of his five-year term. He finally succumbed to popular pressure and sought refuge in Saudi Arabia.
This is very ironic, if one recalled how he came to power some 23 years back, on 7th November 1987. On this day, a 51-year-old Ben Ali engineered a sort of political change not seen before in Africa: a constitutional-medical coup d’état. Just over a month into his new post as Prime Minister and thus constitutional successor to the Head of State, Ben Ali had President Habib Bourguiba (in power since independence in 1956) declared medically unfit for the duties of the office. Using a faked medical report the president’s doctors, he deposed Bourguiba and assumed the presidency.
Tunisia had mixed fortunes under Ben Ali. On the positive side, Ben Ali did well in infrastructural development in his country. In the 2010 UNDP Human Development Index, Tunisia is the third African country and one of only four African countries on the list of High Human Development countries after Libya and Mauritius and before Algeria. Its annual GDP per capita is put at $8,509, with a life expectancy at birth of 74.3 years, and an adult literacy rate of 74.3 per cent. Moreover, the country has developed one of the finest medical systems on the continent, with a good health infrastructure and highly skilled medical staff. Compared to other African states, and given that all this was achieved without substantial natural resources, this is truly an impressive record, and much of the credit goes to Ben Ali. It is this impressive record that bemuses most people.
But there is another side to the story, which is what lies behind the ongoing protests that caused the downfall of Ben Ali. It can be summarised in the following: intolerance and oppression of political dissent, massive levels of corruption by the political elites, huge inequalities between the masses and those close to the centres of power, and an incredible level of arrogance of the latter in their treatment of the former. In fact, Ben Ali’s family owned what they wished in the country with no regard to regulations. Moreover, the impressive infrastructural developments seen in Tunis and coastal touristic areas are no match with the miserable situation of many areas in the South, as this was highlighted in the Gafsa uprisings in 2008.
Politically, Ben Ali maintained power through oppression and constitutional manipulation, which helped him win every election with more than 95 per cent of the votes. His five-year term starting in 1999 was supposed to be his last term in office, according to the Constitution. But in May 2002, the section in the Constitution limiting the president to serving two terms was changed to allow unlimited tenure. At the same time, he changed the age limit for the eligibility for presidency, increasing it to 75 years, in order to allow him (then 66) to stand in the 2004 and 2009 elections.
The first lesson from Ben Ali’s downfall is related to the debate about the relation between democracy and development. Tunisia, like Asian tigers, was considered by many as a good example of a ‘developmental’ regime, despite the glaring lack of democracy and respect of human rights. They argued that democracy, understood as ‘political good governance’, is not necessary for economic prosperity, given that almost all of today’s established democracies began experiencing economic prosperity before becoming democratic.
Evidently, democracy may not be a sufficient condition for economic prosperity but it includes many mechanisms of checks and balances susceptible to facilitate economic development, particularly in African countries endowed with abundant natural resources. While an authoritarian regime might have some control mechanisms, and democratic regimes might be very corrupt, most control measures do not get to the ruling elites in authoritarian regimes. And while a democratic leader might need more negotiations before adopting any decision, authoritarian regimes impose more constraints on the masses that they may not fully contribute to or benefit from the wealth of the country. Tunisia’s development is a façade one, because hugely unequal in terms of beneficiaries, including employment opportunities.
The second lesson is for the immediate neighbours of Tunisia, Africa as a whole and the West. While neighbouring countries might not have an identical situation, most North African countries, particularly Egypt, Libya and, to some extent, Algeria and Morocco, have many similarities with Tunisia. Those are especially found in the huge gaps between the haves and the have nots, as well as their varying intolerance of political dissent. The ‘threat of terrorism’ has for long been a weapon of most of these countries to oppose political liberalisation. Ben Ali’s regime even attempted to describe the ongoing protests as instigated by ‘terrorists’. Many Western countries seem to buy this discourse and favour the apparent stability projected by these regimes over the uncertainty of the outcome of free and fair elections. In Egypt, in particular, where presidential elections are expected later this year, after highly flawed legislative elections in 2010 and against the background of suspected dynastical plans by president Hosni Mubarak, Cairo must read a lot into the happenings next door. The Tunisian saga suggests to the whole of Africa that durable stability is in good governance supported by the masses and not with a corrupt elite.
Regarding the immediate future of the country, it should be recalled that Ben Ali, albeit forced out of power, negotiated his departure before leaving the country. This is clear by his appointment of the Prime Minister, Mohamed Ghannouchi, to succeed him in a caretaker capacity. But the Constitutional Court soon declared the vacancy of the presidency as ‘indefinite’, paving the way to the swearing-in of the ill-health Speaker of Parliament, Fouad Mbazaa, as caretaker president. The latter has asked Ghannouchi to form a new government. Both are closely associated with the defunct regime, hence the continued call by some protesters for a ‘true’ regime change. Meanwhile, others closer to the former president, generally through family ties, seem to be resisting in militia groups, perhaps fearing for their lives.
The first challenge therefore is for the new leadership to swiftly form an ‘inclusive’ government that is representative of the various components of the country. But this government must stick to its ‘transitional’ nature and organise free and fair elections in a reasonable period. The two-month period provided in the current constitution might have to be extended, but a six-month period would be reasonable. If the Mbazaa-Ghannouchi government fails to do so, the country might witness new waves of protests with incommensurable consequences.
