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Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

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Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa EXCERPTED FROM Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa Lise Storm Copyright © 2014 ISBN: 978-1-58826-958-4 hc 1800 30th Street, Ste. 314 Boulder, CO 80301 USA telephone 303.444.6684 fax 303.444.0824 This excerpt was downloaded from the Lynne Rienner Publishers website www.rienner.com Contents Acknowledgments ix 1 Introduction 1 2 Political Parties and Democracy 15 3 Party Politics in Morocco Before the Arab Spring 37 4 Prospects for Democracy in Morocco 63 5 Party Politics in Tunisia Before the Jasmine Revolution 85 6 Prospects for Democracy in Tunisia 111 7 Party Politics in Algeria Before the Arab Spring 133 8 Prospects for Democracy in Algeria 157 9 Prospects for Democracy in North Africa 177 Appendixes A: Legislative Elections in Morocco, 1963–2011 191 B: Legislative and Presidential Elections in Tunisia, 1956–2012 197 C: Legislative and Presidential Elections in Algeria, 1962–2012 201 D: List of Acronyms 207 References 215 Index 235 About the Book 244 vii 1 Introduction This is a book about the Arab world: the Maghreb, to be precise. It is about dynamics of domestic politics and the prospects for democracy in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia—three countries bound together by his - tory and geographic location, yet with very different political experiences. This is also a book about the Arab Spring, of course. How can one talk about politics and democracy in the present day and age, particularly with reference to the Arab world, without discussing the events of the Arab Spring? One of the three cases at the center of my analysis, Tunisia, was the country in which the Arab Spring erupted in late 2010, before it subse - quently spread across the region. Although this book is largely about the Arab Spring, it is important to underline that it was not written because of it. As I shall seek to make clear in the pages that follow, the book is one result of my desire to understand how politics is conducted at the national level in the Maghreb. More specifically, I wanted to understand how the po - litical elite bargains amongst itself, and which parameters frame this process of bargaining, which could potentially lead to democracy. The Arab Spring The term democracy had rarely been used very optimistically in a Middle Eastern context prior to the Arab Spring. Then, suddenly, as the protests spread from Tunisia to Egypt, Morocco, Libya, and farther to the east, peo - ple across the globe found themselves querying whether we were watching yet another “spring,” that is, a spring in the sense of the “protests of 1968” or the popular momentum that brought down a number of authoritarian 1 2 Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa regimes in Eastern and Southern Europe in the mid-1970s and the late 1980s and subsequently introduced democracy in a number of these states. Were we about to witness a democratic Middle East, an Arab world ruled by popularly elected governments, with freedom of expression, assembly, and association protected and respected? The expectations were extremely high, whether in the Arab world or abroad. Taking into account the author - itarian character of the incumbent regimes, the rather loosely coordinated nature of the Arab Spring protests, and the lack of explicit commitment from many of the more established political parties early on in the process, the optimism attached to these events as a force for long-term, significant political change was, in hindsight, perhaps a little naïve. The protests in Tunisia were the most effective, largely because they were not anticipated and also because they were difficult to quell due to their intensity and web-based origins. Few, if any, whether inside Tunisia or abroad, had expected Mohamed Bouazizi’s desperate protest to spark large- scale popular demonstrations that would sweep the country and eventually oust a president who had been firmly in power since the late 1980s. There is no doubt that had these protests been anticipated, they would have been quelled much earlier on, and with much more vigor, using the usual mecha - nisms of regime control: patronage, most likely in the form of higher salaries, bonuses, and food subsidies, as well as the promise of the creation of more jobs for the rapidly growing number of unemployed, particularly among the youth. Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his vast entourage did not realize the sig - nificance of the protests until it was too late, however. With the demonstra - tions being largely coordinated via the Internet (primarily through Facebook and Twitter), and spread by word of mouth, they were all the more difficult to stop. There were no headquarters that could be ransacked and closed down, and there was no leader who could be silenced: the headquarters were every - where in cyberspace, and anyone willing to initiate or spread the word of an upcoming demonstration was effectively a leader. The authorities simply had no way to stop the wave of protests once it had begun, namely, because it did not take the form of a movement and there were no structures to be attacked. The protesters were a force due to their sheer size, their shared objective, and their commitment to turn out in force on a daily basis. As we all know, the Tunisian protesters succeeded in toppling the in - cumbent regime, as Ben Ali left the country and took up exile in Saudi Ara - bia when the demonstrations spun out of control and it had become clear that nothing but his exit would appease the angry masses. In the excitement over the breakdown of Ben Ali’s regime and the subsequent competitive legisla - tive elections—the first free and fair of their kind in the postindependence era—most Tunisians and international observers forgot to query the nature and democratic potential of the new regime, that is, apart from questioning the compatibility of Islam and democracy. In other words, while plenty of Introduction 3 time was afforded the discussion of whether the new cabinet, headed and dominated by the Islamist Ennahda, was truly committed to a secular, dem - ocratic Tunisia, few people inquired about the status of the fundamental democratic building blocks, most notably the character of the political par - ties, the nature of the party system, and the structure of the political system. Had these truly changed in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution? And to what extent had they changed? Moreover, what did these developments—or lack of developments—indicate about the prospects for democracy in Tunisia? These fundamental questions, which have hardly surfaced in the discussion of the implications of the Jasmine Revolution, are consequently the core focus of this book. The questions pertaining to the character of the political parties, the na - ture of the party system, and the structure of the political system are not only relevant in the Tunisian setting, but also with regard to the situations in Al - geria and Morocco, although their experiences of the Arab Spring differ sig - nificantly from each other as well as from the Tunisian experience. In Alge - ria, it is quite evident that nothing much happened, regardless of whether compared to the events in Tunisia or Morocco. Although demonstrations did take place in various Algerian towns and cities, most notably in the Bab el- Oued and Badjarrah neighborhoods of Algiers as well as the Kabylia region, these were much more modest in size, and they did not have the same clear goal as the demonstrations did in neighboring Tunisia. In fact, in Algeria, the Arab Spring protests appeared to be nothing more than an escalation of the social protests taking place on a daily basis across the country prior to 2010, the objectives of the protesters remaining local rather than national in orien - tation, and varying significantly from one city to another. 1 Consequently, due to their lack of a clear, shared objective, the Algerian protesters did not constitute much of a threat to the incumbent regime. Just as in Algeria, the protests in Morocco were much more muted vis- à-vis those in Tunisia, not only in terms of size, but also with regard to the fierceness of the demands put forward, as well as their degree of coherence. That said, in Morocco the protests were arguably more coherent than in Al - geria as there was an actual protest movement, the Mouvement du 20 Février. Yet, while the different components of the movement came to - gether in a call for political reforms, no agreement had been reached on the way forward for the country (i.e., on the contents of such reforms), a real - ity that significantly weakened the cause of the demonstrators. Moreover, because the Moroccan protests were coordinated, they were relatively easy for the regime to neutralize as there were clear lines of command to target, not only via repressive measures, but also by means of patronage. With regard to the demands issued, the Moroccan experience was somewhere in the middle between the Algerian and Tunisian ones. Al - though the emphasis in Morocco was on more than social reforms, there 4 Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa were no strong pleas for regime change in the sense of overthrowing the head of state and instituting a parliamentary democracy in which the king would continue to rule, but not govern. While there was some criticism of the monarchy, very few people seriously questioned Mohammed VI’s abil - ity to govern, or his stabilizing effect on the country. Rather, the focus was on the country’s politicians, who were accused of being inefficient and cor - rupt, more interested in amassing personal wealth than in representing the will of the people.
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