Transition: the art of compromise

Ahmed NÉJIB-CHEBBI Interview with UNDP

On the long road from opposition to government, the hunger strike undertaken on 18 October 2005 by a group of opposition figures of all political stripes was undoubtedly one of the most significant moments, and most likely a turning point. At that point, was living in a state of utter dejection. , who was meant to govern for three terms, ending in 2004, was extending his rule indefinitely. From 1999, he had begun to talk about the possibility of amending the Constitution in order to stand for a fourth term. We contested the reform, but in vain. The amendment was passed in 2002. Ben Ali stood in 2004, and was elected with 99.44% of the vote. The political class lost all faith in the future. Their prospects were obstructed.

In November 2005, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was due to be held in . As the event was to be covered by the world's media, we had thought that the regime, which presented itself as democratic because it was opposed to Islamism, would be obliged to improve its image by adopting at least some reforms, albeit cosmetic ones. What actually happened was the exact opposite. The clampdown hit new heights. We had reached a point where oppositional activists could no longer sit down in a café without being chased away by police. Attacks on activists had become commonplace.

The origins of the 18 October Movement

At that stage, I decided to organize a meeting of twenty senior opposition politicians at my home. They were mostly people from the left. We thought about ways of opening up the system and increasing freedom. Khmais Chamari floated the idea of a hunger strike, but everyone rejected it. The meeting ended without a single proposal being made. I came to the conclusion that that wasn't the right method, and that these people weren't willing to do something together. In the end, I thought a hunger strike could be effective. I got in touch with Hamma Hammami, an activist from the far-left, and Samir Dilou, from the Ennahdha movement. My plan was that everyone should take part in the strike in order to maximize its impact.

The idea of involving the Islamists was carefully thought through. In 2001, after the September 11 attacks, I thought it would be counter-productive to put up a common front with the Islamists because the pressure on political Islam was at its peak, and Ben Ali's regime could have used it to further weaken the opposition. By 2005, however, the situation had changed, and we had to build the broadest possible alliance against the dictatorship.

Moreover, there was already a precedent for a front of this kind, dating back to June 2005, during the trial of the lawyer Mohamed Abbou, who was prosecuted following a series of articles he published online wherein he denounced corruption in the legal system. Around fifty activists of all political persuasions, many of them lawyers, from (an anti-torture activist and the wife of Hamma Hammami) to Noureddine Bhiri (a high-ranking member of Ennahdha), had organized a sit-in. The Islamists' involvement did not cause any problems.

Hamma Hammami quickly accepted the proposal, and I informed him that I had sent an emissary to reach out to Samir Dilou. Although reticent at first, he agreed when I talked to him about the lawyers' sit-in. The lawyer Ayachi Hammami, an independent left-wing activist, also said yes. The strike took place in his office. Journalist Lotfi Hajji (the current head of 's Tunisia bureau), former magistrate Mokhtar Yahyaoui, and lawyer Abderaouf Ayadi also agreed to take part. We contacted Mustapha Ben Jaafar (a senior figure in the Ettakatol party) and Mokhtar Trifi, President of the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights, but both refused, when it was important for the League to be with us, because one of the issues at the time was getting the embargo on the League lifted.

Our demands were threefold: freedom of speech in the press, freedom to assemble and organize, and a general amnesty for political prisoners. We were counting on the media coverage of the WSIS and the arrival in Tunis of delegations from all over the world to promote those aspirations.

An inclusive union

We snuck into Ayachi Hammami's office in the evening, with a few mattresses. There were seven of us, and we were joined by an eighth person, Mohamed Nouri, an Islamist lawyer and a member of the International Association for the Support of Political Prisoners.

We placed our hands on one another's, and swore an oath that we would only break the strike together. If one of us was arrested, we would have to come together and make a joint decision on whether to suspend the strike. The next morning, we held a press conference, which surprised everyone, not least the Directorate for Territorial Surveillance (DST). The police immediately surrounded the building. In the evening, a group of students came to demonstrate in support of our strike. They were blocked. The next morning, we learned that the UK Ambassador wanted to visit us. The police were once again caught by surprise, and let him through. We called all our friends to tell them that this was the time to come; the police would not turn them away.

From that point on, the siege was broken. Committees of support were formed throughout the country. We were meeting with delegations from all the governorates, trade unionists and representatives of trades and professions. It was the visits that tired us out the most: there were as many as three hundred a day. The support group comprised of a hundred personalities of all persuasions. The impact was international. Wherever Tunisians were living, a committee of support was formed. This coming together of diverse groups and the courage they showed in taking action inspired others to get involved and to express their dissatisfaction with the repressive regime. The government found itself completely overwhelmed. When the WSIS took place, the main event was no longer the summit itself, but our strike. It was more successful than we could possibly have hoped for.

From the movement to the forum of 18 October

We knew that the government was not going to give in, so we needed an exit strategy, but we had met our political objective: to trigger a mass movement, and to raise the widest possible public awareness of the realities of the regime. We stopped at the request of a delegation led by Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirine Ebadi, who had committed to take up our cause in the name of the global human rights movement. The strike was suspended on 18 November, just as the WSIS was beginning, and when our advantage was at its height.

But what would we do once the strike was over? The natural choice seemed to be to pursue joint action based on our three minimum demands, which everyone supported. But did we need to form a political front to do that? Although we had the same ambition of democracy, it seemed necessary to discuss the foundations of that ambition before doing so. So we decided, first, to continue our united action based on our demands and, second, to establish a forum for debate on the foundations of a plan for democracy. If we could reach a shared position, the formation of a political front could be envisaged. Otherwise, we would have to settle for minimal action. That is how the idea of the forum of 18 October came about.

The Forum's attempts at practical action were systematically repressed. We tried to hold street demonstrations for freedom of speech on World Press Freedom Day, but for one reason or another, we found ourselves confronted with an overwhelming horde of police officers. Ultimately, we were discouraged by the steamroller of repression that was unleashed. There was no longer any point trying anything at all.

Meetings, however, were tolerated initially. We met alternately at PDP and Ettakatol headquarters to discuss four issues: women's rights, the relationship between religion and the State, corporal punishment in the criminal justice system (the Hûdud), and freedom of conscience. The discussion was initiated by a guest – for example, Abdelmajid Charfi or Ayadh Ben Achour – and the party representatives would then speak and debate the issues.

After a while, the authorities decided to ban our meetings, so we were forced to hold them secretly. When, despite our precautions, the authorities found out about our meetings, the police would unfurl a huge operation covering an entire neighbourhood to prevent any access. Despite everything, we managed to reach agreements on all of the points covered.

The changing face of Ennahdha

The biggest differences of opinion were between Ennahdha and the others. The Islamist movement had already adjusted its doctrine back in 2003, at the meetings held in Aix-en-Provence at the initiative of to discuss forming a political front. The other opposition parties were not in favour. Mustapha Ben Jaafar went to Aix en Provence. Personally, I decided not to. Our party was represented by Mohamed Goumani, who had been explicitly instructed not to sign anything that entailed a political front. Local and international conditions meant that there would be more disadvantages than advantages, and at the time, we were not in agreement about the democratic project.

The text produced at Aix-en-Provence showed how Ennahdha was prepared to change. As far back as the 1980s, had told a Kuwaiti newspaper that if the chose to be governed by the communist party, the Islamists would yield to their will. Their idea, however, was to accept democracy in order to get into power. Once in power, though, with the feeling that they represented the majority of society, would they be prepared to return to the ballot box? It wasn't clear. But there had already been a shift in position in comparison to the , for whom the idea of using democracy as a means to achieve power was heresy.

In 1983, while in prison, Rached Ghannouchi, a modern Muslim, had written a text about women that included a number of revised positions. He admitted that Tunisian Islamists had positioned themselves on the issue as a reaction to Bourguiba, which had not helped to further thought on the matter. He even went as far as to assert that a woman could be Head of State in a Muslim country, his rationale being that being Head of State was not the same as being the Caliph of all Muslims, but rather the equivalent of being the emir of a Muslim province.

Still, this was an internal evolution. The change in the Islamists' approach entailed incorporating elements of modern thought in their Islamic ideological vision. It was not a clean break or a head-on confrontation with the old position, but a process of absorption and integration. It was a change that happened in stages.

Ennahdha's involvement in the forum of 18 October was a part of this process. It was represented by and Zied Doualetli. Even after they had given their agreement, the party took a very long time to approve the texts because they posed ideological problems and caused internal disagreements. But in the end, Ennahdha ratified the accords, which sowed the seeds for the Constitution of today. There were, in particular, two declarations on freedom of conscience and gender equality which stated those principles in clearer terms than the current constitution. It was the first time Ennahdha had asserted that apostasy was not punishable in Islam (In its work Les libertés publiques dans un Etat islamique ("Public Freedoms in an Islamic State"), it had already written that such a sanction was never imposed in the time of the Prophet). Full equality without gender discrimination was clearly accepted. 18 October was a decisive moment in uniting the political society we have today. The failure of the political front

Although it reached an agreement on the foundations of the democratic project, the Forum did not succeed in transforming itself into a political front, because government repression had demoralized the participants, and because Ennahdha had been fragmented by deep divisions on the attitude it should adopt with regards to the regime. Many of its senior members were calling for reconciliation, while some people on the outside, such as Rached Ghannouchi, were hostile to those calls for compromise, feeling that they were taking advantage of people's demoralized state to encourage reconciliation with the regime and the conditions it imposed.

As far as the 2009 presidential election was concerned, the participants in the forum of 18 October were unable to agree on a common position. We stood in a disorganized array.

The issue of presidency for life was raised the very next day after the election. The Constitution included a provision that Ben Ali had introduced to get rid of Ahmed Mestiri in 1989, limiting the age of candidates to 75. It was the last remaining obstacle to life presidency. Ettakatol moved closer to Ettajdid, but it seemed to me that they had not kept up with the changing situation. Ennahdha was too weakened and too divided, and they had decided to suspend their political activities until their internal conflicts were resolved, as Ali Laarayedh told me when I invited him to join the campaign against the amendment of the Constitution.

Politically speaking, as the Revolution approached, the 18 October movement no longer existed, because, in practical terms, it could no longer pursue activities in defence of rights and freedoms, and, in theoretical terms, its agreements did not result in united political positions. This would explain the divisions in the aftermath of the Revolution.

From the spark to the compromise

The uprising of young Tunisians in the winter of 2010 was foreseeable. It was a spontaneous revolt with social roots, but the events in the mining region in 2008 had triggered a cycle of protests. Small-scale revolts were springing up all over the place, and all of them were quelled almost instantly.

Unemployment and regional development were two ticking time bombs. Even though the old regime had achieved a degree of growth, it had failed when it came to addressing the concerns of young people and the regions. The spark in Sidi Bouzid was, at its root, a protest by young people. The issues at stake were employment and dignity.

Because the old regime had no crisis resolution mechanism, the revolt very quickly took on a political nature. The result, albeit not the outcome initially targeted, was the collapse of the regime and the ousting of the Head of State.

The PDP was on the front line, way out ahead of other parties in its opposition to the regime. Naturally, our activists took part in the Revolution. The spokesperson for Sidi Bouzid was a member of the PDP's political bureau. Our newspaper, El Mawkif, followed the movement week by week, provided information and tried to establish goals and demands. Our premises served as a platform for addressing the international media.

Ben Ali left, without anyone expecting it, on 14 January. On the 15th, Prime Minister called me to invite me to be part of a government of national unity that would exclude the figures most closely involved in repression or corruption. The UGTT initially accepted and sent a letter proposing three names. Mustapha Ben Jaafar also accepted the post of Minister of Health, and advocated participation in this government. The UGTT then quickly changed its mind and, under its influence, and perhaps that of Ahmed Mestiri, Ben Jaafar also pulled out. But Ahmed Brahim, Taïeb Baccouche and other figures remained. This government was founded on the idea of a compromise with the technocratic portion of the old regime, which included figures like and .

When I was in prison or in hiding during the dark days of repression, I read a lot, particularly about democratic transitions. The key to a successful transition is compromise between those elements of the establishment who are convinced of the need for reform, and the representatives of civil society who oppose the system.

I therefore accepted Mohamed Ghannouchi's suggestion without hesitation. Continuing the confrontation could either lead to the collapse of the state, or to the defeat of the Revolution. As far as I was concerned, the compromise had a clear basis: saving the state and changing the regime. It was a matter of taking all the possible measures we could in order to ensure a peaceful transition to democracy, which would, ideally, culminate in the election of a Head of State who would have called an election for the Assembly and amended the Constitution.

The government's first act was the general amnesty. Act 2 was the suspension of the RCD's permanent staff and the reclaiming of all the cars the state had made available to them. The police were withdrawn from the universities. Later came the creation of the Committee on Political Reform, chaired by Yiadh Ben Achour, and the decision to form a media reform commission and an independent authority for elections. The principles of freedom of the press and freedom to constitute parties were also adopted by this government. With a view to a free presidential election in June, letters were sent to the UN and the European Union asking them to provide observers. Historically, this was the compromise that allowed Tunisia to become the exception.

I argued for the compromise. But I paid the price. All the 18 October participants waged a campaign against me, which was reported in the media. From Ennahdha, to Mustapha Ben Jaafar and the lawyers, to the far left. They came together in a movement called the 14 January Movement, which drew support from the structures of the UGTT. The trade union's management had distanced itself from the revolution in public statements, but there were some active members within it, particularly from far-left parties (the Watad and the PCOT), who were putting pressure on the leadership to follow their line: non-participation in the government, the removal of ministers who served in the old government and the abandonment of the roadmap towards a presidential election in favour of the election of a Constituent Assembly.

During this period, the interests of the far-left and Ennahdha converged. The former had a culture of extremism and rejecting all compromise. Ennahdha, meanwhile, were not part of the compromise, so it was in their interest for it to collapse. The Islamists, however, had their own strategy: restructuring themselves in a bid to win power. The far-left, meanwhile, did not have the means or the culture to seize power and, in the end, it derived no electoral benefit from this situation.

The Kasbah 1 rally in late January resulted in the removal of the ministers who had served in the old government. The Kasbah 2 rally, in late February, imposed the adoption of another roadmap, leading to the election of a Constituent Assembly. Everything happened very quickly during this period. But at the beginning, there was no question of Mohamed Ghannouchi's resigning. He eventually cracked on the Saturday night when he heard people calling for him to be hanged on television. On Sunday, he announced his intention to resign. All the ministers met in Carthage, but he had already invited the press along to announce his decision.

He had laid the foundations for the transition. After 45 days, he fell, and I fell with him. Béji Caid Essebsi, chosen by a small learned assembly consisting of the Prime Minister, the President of the Republic and the Head of the Armed Forces, then took over, with the same personnel and the same action plan. The result was the 2011 elections.

I said to Béji Caïd Essebsi, "I wouldn't like to be in your shoes. You are going to hold free elections at a time when the parties are extremely weak and we don't know which alliances will determine who is chosen to be the representatives of this camera obscura: a resuscitated tribalism, money, networks that are anything but political.” Entrusting the future of the country to a chamber whose make-up and balance was unknown was quite a risk. It seemed to me to be wiser to choose someone for the presidency: a political figure who could take charge of the reforms and the drafting of the new Constitution. But we can't change History.

Fighting Ennahdha

The new Prime Minister gave me a choice: take part in the elections, or be part of the government. I opted for the elections. At the start, we were neck and neck with Ennahdha. Initially, our movement, the PDP, saw its membership swell hugely and we thought we could be the alternative. We conducted our campaign on the basis that the legislative election would be held in July 2011.

The postponement of the election to October took the wind out of our sails. It profited only Ennahdha, who could naturally spread their propaganda as part of the Ramadan activities in the summer, when all other social activities would have slowed down.

When I took a stand against Ennahdha, it wasn't because they were Islamists. Since 1979, I had stopped thinking in terms of ideological systems, which are simply attempts to rationalize events. Ideology is essentially exclusive, whereas democracy is, by its very nature, inclusive. If you are political, you see everyone as part of the same country, from communists to Salafists, and you all have to live peacefully together. What counts are the rules by which society is managed. When you have an ideological approach, disagreements can sometimes become violent, because you are dealing with belief systems which tend to claim a monopoly on reason and to banish anything that diverges from that path. In an inclusive approach, even if you disagree completely with your opponent, you respect his or her rights and you organize society so that everyone is equal in the eyes of the law and each party submits itself to the judgement of the electorate at the ballot box.

My opposition to Ennahdha was therefore political. There were two things I objected to. First, not having a programme and, in the absence of a programme, using religion as an argument, thus not only distracting attention from the real problems, but also dividing society. My second criticism was their propensity for hegemony, which could be seen long before the campaign. All ideological movements have a tendency to instrumentalize the State in service of their ideology. Those two criticisms proved to be accurate. They had revealed themselves to be ill prepared to govern the country and tried to take control of the State through mass partisan appointments, among other strategies.

We were in political competition with Ennahdha. But we had been demonized by all of our rivals. Ennahdha and the CPR played on the risk of the old regime returning to power, when in fact there was no danger of that occurring. I saw that fear in the people. They felt that there were plots afoot, and that the parties who played on that fear found that it chimed with people. But the State emerged from the Revolution shaken. The police had been defeated and could not be used as an instrument to restore the old regime to power. The RCD had crumbled and the RCDists were keeping a low profile. Justice had not yet been reformed, but the judges had acquired their independence. Since 2011, they are no longer directly answerable to the demands of the executive, and the various institutions protect them. Corruption, of course, can still pave the way for pressures of all kinds. But a revolution cannot take place in a day. In my view, the government was floored in 2011 and had no chance of coming back.

We were also presented as the party of money and businessmen. That whole campaign ended up influencing public opinion. We were beaten, when we could have been at least the second biggest political force in the country.

But I respected the choice of the Tunisian people, and I became part of the opposition, insofar as I did not expect that the coming experience would result in the achievement of the goals for which the population had risen up. From opposition to compromise

The Constituent Assembly period can be divided into two phases. From 23 October 2011, the date of the elections, to 23 October 2012, it had electoral legitimacy. A year later, as of 23 October 2012, that electoral legitimacy no longer existed. There was a different strategy for each phase.

From the start, we chose to be part of the opposition. The law on the provisional organisation of public powers placed the lion's share of power in the hands of the Prime Minister, who was also the General Secretary of Ennahdha. They produced a finance law from Ben Ali's files that had to be adopted within 48 hours, to which we were opposed. The government's incapacity to manage the country's economy was manifest and was reflected in the downgrading of Tunisia's financial rating. That strengthened opposition. The social question remained shrouded in tension. The debate on the Constitution was virulent.

In May 2012, I began calling for a technocratic government to be formed. It was a stance based on the government's failure and on a fear that the country might collapse. It was strictly political. I wasn't waging an ideological war. Our opposition was institutional. We were not seeking to overthrow the government from the street. Until October 2012, we respected its electoral legitimacy.

From October 2012, Tunisia entered a phase of quarrels and confusion. The troika did not intend to honour its commitment to completing a transition within a year. It was continuing to govern and did not want to be bound by any deadline whatsoever.

In December 2012, after the Siliana riots, tried to widen the political base of his government to ease the pressure and begin to escape the control of the party. He offered me the Foreign Affairs post, and Maya Jribi any other role, to bring us into a broader coalition. But our policy was not to have our share of the cake. It was out of the question for us to strengthen the troika's position against the opposition. If the country was to be safeguarded, we would require either the forming of a national government, with Nidaa Tounes and the Popular Front, or a technocratic government supported from the outside by all parties. Jebali replied that he could not agree to any of these solutions. The first solution, one of inclusion, was just not palatable to Ennahdha. The second implied breaking up the troika, which was not his intention.

Personally, though I thought that the electoral legitimacy had expired, I was conscious of the need to put pressure on Ennahdha to make concessions on the Constitution and the date of the elections. Seeking to overthrow the government risked confrontation and the failure of the Revolution. My approach led Nidaa Tounes, who was engaged in an escalation of ideological conflict which at times jeopardized the country's stability, to present me as a man who was sitting on the fence.

This compromise strategy first took shape in the dialogue organized by the presidency in Dar Dhiafa in April 2013. The party had tasked me with contacting the opposition leaders one by one to get them all together around a table to resolve the problems and shorten the transition by quickly undertaking the reforms necessary for the holding of free elections. I went to see Moncef Marzouki, who immediately agreed to the idea. He was the only one who could get everyone together, open the debate, and allow the parties to engage in discussion.

El Massar came, then withdrew because the UGTT wasn't there, but they didn't want to be there because they wanted to hold their own national dialogue process. Béji Caïd Essebsi came, then pulled out.

Despite everything, we worked on all the delicate issues for a month. It was at this stage that all the fundamental choices for the Constitution were negotiated. We reached agreements that the UGTT process approved the very next day. The final draft of the Constitution presented on 1 June contained most of the solutions developed in Dar Dhiafa, although the text was improved after the power struggle of summer 2013.

The pressure pays off

Ennahdha agreed to make concessions on the Constitution, but it thought that it could continue to govern. Until, that is, the assassination of the member of parliament Mohamed Brahmi, on 25 July 2013, triggered the Bardo sit-in. Two hours after the assassination, I made a booming statement, calling for the work of the Assembly to be suspended, for an expert committee to be formed that would address all the contentious issues in order to produce a draft Constitution that could be put to a referendum, and for the government to leave office. Three tendencies emerged as the sit-in developed. The first, represented by Hamma Hammami, wanted to overthrow the government from the street by taking over the civil service. The second, embodied by Nidaa Tounes, wanted to raise the stakes in order to push Ennahdha into a bipartite agreement to share power in these dark times. This yielded a meeting in Paris between Béji Caïd Essebsi and Rached Ghannouchi. The third approach – ours – entailed applying pressure through the sit-in to force Ennahdha into a clear compromise with all the political forces. That was what happened as part of the National Dialogue which ended on 19 December.

The negotiation was meant to resolve the problem of the Constitution and the government, but it stumbled when it came to choosing a Prime Minister. Nidaa Tounes and the Popular Front were defending Ennaceur, whereas I was advocating Ahmed Mestiri, because he had the trust of the two leading players. Taking advantage of the impasse and of the disagreements within the opposition, Ennahdha made a pact with the UGTT to select , without consulting the main parties and against the will of the National Salvation Front parties. We did not wish to endorse the way in which this decision was imposed, and we left the negotiating table.

In the end, the search for compromise through pressure paid off. It paved the way for the adoption of the Constitution, and led to the formation of the Mehdi Jomaa government and the 2014 elections. But I paid the price.

In accordance with the approach I felt necessary for the adoption of a successful peaceful transition, I advocated two compromises, one with the technocrats from the old regime when we had to lay the foundations for the transition, and the other with a hegemonic Ennahdha party to persuade them to leave power without destabilizing the institutions. Tunisia committed to that path, and I played an important role in that. Those two compromises were vital for Tunisia. But I suffered electorally because of them.

Now, in my view, the most important thing is regional development. The most dangerous aspect lies ahead of us. If the issues that led to the revolution are not resolved, an uprising more horrendous than that of 2011 will occur. If the people representing society continue to turn their backs on it, the Tunisians will turn their backs on them, and, in turn and will look for an outlet in much more radical political movements, such as Daesh.

People come to democracy to defend their own interests. It is the balance of power which forces them to honour agreements, and that ends up becoming a culture.