The confused situation in Tunisia has seen a provisional government formed from which the country’s liberals, the Social Liberal Party, has been excluded. Only representatives of socialist groups and the former ruling party have been given places in the new government,
The Social Liberal Party is a member of Liberal International, which has protested at its exclusion and pointed out that a functioning democracy cannot be formed while all but one part of the political spectrum is omitted from the process. The party’s website is in Arabic only.
Liberal International’s responses can be seen here.
Ronald Meinardus, director of the Middle East and North Africa office of the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit, which is affiliated to Germany’s FDP, has written an article for the Egyptian press on the possible consequences of events in Tunisia for the region, which is translated from the German here.
Liberal International British Group (LIBG) is part of the world federation of liberal political parties – Liberal International. Founded in 1947, Liberal International has become the pre-eminent network for liberal parties and for the strengthening of liberal democracy around the world. Find out more at our website www.libg.co.uk.
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Perhaps someone could say a little more about their credentials for inclusion – in order to be a part of a ruling coalition a little more is usually expected than being a member of the Liberal International.
Since when did the Pirate Party become a ‘socialist group’? Because their Tunisian leader has a junior minister’s job.
Without any balance, analysis, or indeed, fact checking, this press release simply looks like sour grapes.
I think it is a reasonable criticism of a “unity government” that it doesn’t include representatives of all established legal political parties. Given that all previous elections have been blatantly rigged it is genuinely difficult to work out how much popular support each opposition party has, so the only fair solution is to invite all of them. It would also provide opposition politicians with much-needed ministerial experience before free elections are held.
Now that Nahda (the moderate Islamist party) and the Communists have been legalised they should also be invited. There are plenty of ex-RCD ministers who can be sacked to make way for some more opposition representatives. The opposition needs proper representation, otherwise the government will not be seen as legitimate by the protesters who overthrew Mr Ben Ali’s regime.
It would help that when appraising Islamist parties, people didn’t immediately succumb to an exotic fascination in all things non-Western. Nahda – and its leaders, Rachid and Yusra Ghannouchi – is not a “moderate” party, and should be compared to the French National Front (along with the father and daughter leaders).
Why? The first criteria for inviting any party should be whether they have sufficient popular support, not to satisfy the desire for observers sitting thousands of miles away to be nice to everyone.
~alec