Tunisia's Thing.

In recent weeks the people of Tunisia have overthrown their corrupt and autocratic government. Now you couldn't really call this a coup 'd ete because at all times the military were technically following the orders of the government. Nor can you really call it a revolution because there was no organised opposition party driving the movement ready to swoop in with an alternative political system. Instead it was just the Tunisian people telling their government it was time to go. So I suppose the correct thing to call it is an uprising even if in Arabic this translates as intifada and carries with it connotations of the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Apart from being difficult to name the uprising creates the problem of where does Tunisia go from here. As the protests were largely driving by high unemployment, rising prices and a thirst for democracy I think it's fair to say that the Tunisians want to build a capitalist society regulated by a democratic government. In itself this is a problem because you only need to look at the attempts and failures of governments across the democratic world to see that organising a fair and functioning, democratic government is not the easiest thing to do.

In Tunisia this task is made even more difficult because for the past 50 years the country has been a one party state. This means that regardless of their actual political persuasion any Tunisian with skills in, say, urban planning would have to join the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) party in order to get a job in the civil service. As a results anyone with the skills to actually run a government department are tarnished by links to Ben Ali and the RCD. This is very similar to the situation in Saddam Hussein's Iraq at the time of the American invasion. On that occasion the Americans decided to instantly dissolve Saddam's Ba'ath party and ban any of it's members from playing any further role in public life. This quickly proved to be a huge mistake as Iraq's civil society collapsed throwing the country into a chaos that took seven years and hundreds of thousands of lives to even begin to put right.

Obviously Tunisia doesn't share some of Iraq's other problems such as two religious groups that hate each other or a foreign military occupation but the Iraq example does demonstrate that the Prime Minister, Mohamed Ghanouchi's promise to hold elections within 60 days (mid-March) probably won't be possible. In fact as that promise was made during Mr Ghanouchi's brief time as President you could argue that it was just another attempt by Ben Ali's cronies to cling onto Tunisia's past then help build it a better future. So while I think that the fact that Tunisia's uprising must result in free and fair elections is an absolute the people should be careful not to lose the progress they've made by rushing into them.

Instead I think they should work with and within the government of national unity to allow it to solve so key problems;

Firstly there is the issue of security. Although this problem seems to be solving itself there are still reports of violent protests, looting and members of the secret police loyal to the RCD acting as something of a stay at home army by committing acts of sabotage. These people need to be identified and arrested to bring stability to the country.

Secondly there is a lack of a credible political opposition. As Tunisia has been a one party state for so long anyone who disagreed with the politics of the RCD was sent into exile and those who remained were kept so neutered that they posed no real challenge to the RCD. What's needed now is for those exiles to return and be allowed the time to form proper political parties with real policies about how to run the economy and manage the police force etc.

Thirdly there needs to be a cleaning up of the Tunisian civil service. While everybody had to join the RCD to get a job in the civil service there are those civil servants who joined the party because they genuinely believed in what it stood for and what it was doing. Over time and starting from the very top these people need to be identified and removed from their jobs along with those who are just plain incompetent. Eventually the RCD should be disbanded and prevented from standing in any future election.

Finally there is the issue of the Trablisi clan and the money they stole. It seems that most of them have already fled the country and taken their wealth with them and steps should be taken bring them back. However the priority is to focus on those who have not fled. They should be arrested and put on trial and if convicted forfeit their assets to the government.

Obviously this will all take time so there is little point in holding an election in mid-March. Ideally this should all be done within three months but must absolutely be done within six months. For that to happen the Tunisian opposition need to engage with the RCD through the government of national unity if only to see how the RCD are attempting to slow the process down.