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Tunisia basks in praise over its new constitution
by Bouazza Ben Bouazza and Paul Schemm

The Associated Press    Translate This Article
7 February 2014

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) - As recently as December, the outlook for Tunisia remained grim. International lenders were withholding money. Parliament remained deadlocked. Investigations continued into the assassination of two politicians.

On Friday, French President Francois Hollande and other world leaders attended a ceremony for the formal adoption of a document being praised as one of the most progressive constitutions in an Arab nation.

What a turnaround.

The Arab Spring, which began in Tunisia, is now being described by many analysts as a region-wide winter, especially in countries such as Egypt, where the country's first popularly elected leader was deposed by the military, and Libya, where militias rule instead of a central government. But Tunisia remains a bright spot, since its fractious elected assembly finally wrote and passed a progressive constitution last month.

'This text honors your revolution. It can serve as an example and reference to many other countries,' said Hollande during the ceremony before Tunisia's parliament. 'You have an obligation to succeed for yourself and for all the other countries watching you. Tunisia is not an exception, it is an example.'

The speeches lauded the country's ability to transcend differences and forge the necessary consensus that is necessary to produce a constitution. The president of Libya's parliament sounded almost rueful in his praise of Tunisia.

'Libya intends to follow the same path,' said Nouri Abu Sahmein, whose country is still struggling to register voters to elect the commission to write a constitution. 'Despite the difficulties, the General Congress and the Libyan government are working to ensure the conditions for successful democratic transition.'

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki in his address highlighted the sacrifices the country had made as well as the achievement the constitution represented.

'By adopting the constitution, Tunisia celebrated a triple victory—over dictatorship, over terrorism that seeks to spread chaos and block our path to democracy and over our own divisions,' he said.

All this praise couldn't be in starker contrast to attitudes toward Tunisia in July when Hollande last visited. 'The question was whether it would be a good thing to go to Tunisia, because 'Oh la la, it's complicated,'' given the stalled constitutional process, said an official with the French presidency on the eve of Friday's ceremony. 'Today we are going again because it's a success,' he said on condition of anonymity in keeping with government policy.

While Hollande is the only European head of state attending, the ceremony in Tunis also included the presidents of Senegal, Gabon, Lebanon, Mauritania and Chad, the Algerian prime minister, Spanish Crown Prince Felipe, and several European parliamentary leaders.

Conspicuously absent was any representative from fellow Arab Spring nation Egypt, whose relations with Tunisia have been tense since Marzouki called for the release of his Egyptian counterpart Mohammed Morsi following his imprisonment by the military.

On Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama called interim Tunisian Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa and congratulated him on the new constitution, and invited him to visit Washington.

After overthrowing their dictator in 2011, Tunisians brought a moderate Islamist party into power allied with two other secular parties. But this coalition struggled in the face of continuing social unrest, high unemployment and the rise of a radical Islamist movement with ties to al-Qaida that seemed bent on derailing the political transition.

The assassinations of two left-wing politicians, one in February and the other in July, prompted a walkout by the opposition and brought the entire political transition to its knees.

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls accused the government of Islamic fascism.

The deadlock exacerbated the economic crisis in Tunisia, and the International Monetary Fund withheld a half-billion-dollar loan. The S&P international ratings agency in August downgraded Tunisia's credit rating two more notches deeper into junk territory. It described 'the popular legitimacy of Tunisia's transitional institutions as increasingly contested, jeopardizing the approval of the new constitution.' Inflation soared, the budget deficit yawned even wider, and demonstrations over high food prices and lack of jobs spread.

With the passage of the constitution, however, Tunisia's image abroad has brightened immeasurably, as symbolized by the IMF release of its loan a few days after the document was adopted.

Ezzedine Saidane, a Tunisian financial expert, said the World Bank is now expected to extend a loan of its own soon, and the African Development Bank to lift a moratorium on lending to Tunisia.

'The fundamentals are the same, but now it's a simply a psychological matter. People feel better and are relieved somehow,' he said. 'I think the mood has changed tremendously, both inside the country and outside the country.'

The slide of the Tunisian dinar against foreign currencies has halted, and even the stock market has perked up, despite the fact that the serious economic problems remain.

There is a sense that the international community is once more backing Tunisia's revolution now that it has shown that it can move forward, said Mansouria Mokhefi, head of the Middle East and North Africa program at the French Institute for International Relations.

'The three years of this revolution were not really supported by the Western countries because of the economic crisis in Europe, and because of these misunderstandings that arose at the outset of the revolution. The support was not there,' she said.

This was especially true of France.

Hollande's predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, had close relations with the dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and Sarkozy's government expressed deep reservations about the subsequent victory of Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda party at the polls.

Hollande's government attempted to patch up relations with Tunisia during his visit in July. But a deep uneasiness remained that the nation's transition could still fail.

But 'France is now extremely relieved' about Tunisia's progress, said Mokhefi.

In his message to Tunisia for the occasion, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made it clear that it was not only France that viewed the Tunisian experience as a model for the region.

'I count on the government and people of Tunisia to continue to inspire the world as they did some three years ago, and serve as an example for dialogue and compromise in resolving political disputes across the region and beyond,' he said.

______

Associated Press writer Sylvie Corbet contributed to this report from Paris. Schemm reported from Paris.

Copyright © 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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