Divergent Democratization: the Paths of Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania Volume 14, Winter 2007, Number 4

Divergent Democratization: The Paths Of Tunisia, Morocco And Mauritania Volume 14, Winter 2007, Number 4 Dafna Hochman Ms. Hochman, a doctoral candidate in political science at Columbia University, is conducting field research in North Africa. She is a former foreign-affairs adviser in the United States Senate. Ms. Hochman, a doctoral candidate in political science at Columbia University, is conducting field research in North Africa. She is a former foreign-affairs adviser in the United States Senate. Source: https://www.mepc.org/journal/divergent-democratization-paths-tunisia-morocco- and-mauritania In late 1987, political scientists assessing the prospects for democratization in the Arab world hailed Tunisia as a frontrunner, proclaiming it to be on the brink of the first democratic transition in the region.1 The new president, Zine el-Abedine Ben Ali, though he had assumed power through a bloodless coup, immediately legitimized the regime change in the name of reform and democratization, promising open participation for all political parties and actors, including the Islamists. At the time, these same social scientists were less sanguine about the possibilities for similar transitions among Tunisia's neighbors, particularly Morocco's monarchy, notorious for its human-rights violations, and Mauritania's repressive military dictatorship. Twenty years later, the democratization differential among Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia is surprising and dramatically divergent from earlier predictions. Moreover, 2007 has been a fateful year for all three states. In March-April 2007, Mauritania held the first free and fair executive-branch elections in the Arab world in which no incumbent candidates ran, following the approval of a new constitution and open legislative elections.2 Morocco's King Mohammed VI has continued to steer the country toward social and economic liberalization. On September 7, Moroccans voted in free, multiparty legislative elections that attracted international attention because of the popularity of the country's legal Islamist party, the Party of Justice and Development (PJD). By contrast, this past fall Tunisia – once the beacon of democratic hope in North Africa – marked 20 years since President Ben Ali came to power on a campaign to abolish lifelong presidencies and the other authoritarian excesses of his predecessor, Habib Bourguiba. Despite these earlier promises, Tunisia under Ben Ali has become a repressive one-party state that prohibits political opposition and a free press, and limits Internet access and most associational life. Why have poor and less-developed Mauritania and Morocco far outpaced their richer neighbor Tunisia in terms of democratization, often defined as a movement toward greater political participation and contestation, as well as civil rights?3 This article assesses three likely explanations: the power of economic development to perpetuate stable authoritarianism; the relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and multiparty democratization; and the institutional differences among military, personal and one-party rule. After comparing the status of political and civil rights in Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia in 1987 with the status of such rights today, this article then assesses these three explanations and concludes by asking whether – and how – the Bush administration's democratization policies might have influenced the three states' democratization trajectories. Comparing the democratic deficit in Tunisia to the progress achieved in Mauritania and Morocco is not simply an academic exercise; the North African cases yield useful lessons to practitioners. Though many in the policy community have given up the notion that democratization in the Arab world should be a U.S. objective, the North African cases suggest that – with new perspectives and a great deal of patience – it still might be an obtainable goal. 1987-2007: What Changed? Mauritanian Democracy: Brought in from the Barracks From its 1960 independence from France to 1987, Mauritania cycled through four military governments, three coups and a series of internecine struggles within the military. In 1987, Maouiya Ould SidAhmed Taya had been ruling for three years and would stay in power for another eighteen. To legitimize his repressive military rule, Taya periodically held sham elections, boycotted by the members of the political opposition who were not in exile or in prison. Col. Taya and his ruling junta not only controlled all political power, they also instituted violent and discriminatory policies toward black, non-Arab Mauritanians, who constitute approximately 30 percent of the population and primarily reside in the southern Senegal River Valley. Taya's regime favored the Moors, the descendants of Arab conquerors and Berbers, as well as the so-called "Black Arabs," the former African slaves of the Arab, who have come to share their Moorish ethnicity but are often still marginalized. In 1989, ethnic tensions reached a new high, when Taya turned a blind eye to the killing of hundreds of black Mauritanians in the South. The fighting forced approximately 40,000 black Mauritanians to flee to refugee camps across the border in Senegal.4 Moreover, according to Amnesty International and antislavery organizations, tens of thousands of Mauritanians remained enslaved by their co-nationalists despite the state's official abolition of slavery.5 In August 2005, a group of army colonels identifying themselves as the Military Council for Justice and Democracy (MCJD) overthrew Taya in a bloodless coup, dissolved the parliament and appointed a new transitional government. The coup, the MCJD announced, aimed to end "the totalitarian practices of the deposed regime under which our people have suffered." The new 17-member transitional government promised to restore civil rule through elections within two years.6 Aware of Mauritania's legacy of coups and counter coups, none of which had installed democratic governments, the head of the transitional government, Col. Vall, urged skeptics: "Do not judge me by what I say, but by what I do."7 In 2005 and 2006, the transitional government, the MCJD and the Council of Ministers held national consultations with the nearly 50 political parties, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and public figures to debate a roadmap to democracy. Subsequently, they released a timeline for the democratic transition that would be complete by March 2007. As his first steps toward this goal, Vall lifted all censorship laws and revised the constitution to limit presidential terms to two five-year mandates. The new constitution went further, taking an extra precaution unprecedented in the Arab world: it banned all future revisions to the presidential term-limit clause. True to the junta's word, by March 2007, the new constitution had been drafted and approved by a national referendum; new governors and legislators had been elected from 21 of Mauritania's 29 political parties; and a lively and vigorous presidential campaign was underway. In the last weeks of the campaign, the two finalists debated each other on national television and blogs, airing their views on previously taboo topics such as ethnic persecution and slavery.8 Over 1.1 million of the country's 3.2 million people voted, some using special ballots with symbols rather than letters because of widespread illiteracy.9 In April, Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi won 53 percent of the votes in a second-round runoff against veteran opposition leader Ahmed Ould Daddah.10 True to their original promise, none of the military junta took part in the election, at least overtly. At the new president's inauguration in April, they quietly took their leave:11 "We've fulfilled our commitment, and now it's time to go," Col. Vall told reporters. Although Mauritania's new democracy remains vulnerable, especially to future military interference, many Mauritanians are cautiously optimistic about their recent democratic progress. Morocco: Liberalization without Much Democratization. By 1987, Morocco's King Hassan had been ruling since 1961 with an iron fist, repressing political opponents and violently suppressing frequent rural and urban riots. Only later, in the 1990s, would King Hassan begin to moderate; for the first three decades of his reign, he was feared by his populace and notorious abroad for the human-rights violations rampant in his kingdom. King Hassan controlled all of the levers of politics; he appointed all the ministers, cancelled or called for periodic parliamentary elections when they suited his purpose, and constitutionally ensured that the parliament and the judicial system would have only limited independence from the executive. Hundreds of political opponents faced torture, disappearances, execution and detention without trial, often only because they had expressed opinions hostile to the government.12 The prisoners, many of whom came from the two largest opposition parties, the Istiqlal and the USFP, were held in infamous mega prisons such as Tazmamaat.13 Citizens were not the only ones prohibited from criticizing the regime; the feared minister of interior shut down any newspaper critical of the king or the country's socioeconomic woes, and jailed the editors. By the late 1980s, the international community began to express alarm at the human-rights conditions in Morocco. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued damning reports, and the European Union and the United States Senate condemned the violations and threatened to withhold foreign aid.14

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