News -> Tunisian general election, 2014 0000-00-00
Protests in Tunisia began in December 2010 with riots in Sidi Bouzid after Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight in protest against the confiscation of his fruit and vegetable cart.The riots then spread across the country and continued into 2011. Days after a curfew was imposed in the capital Tunis amid continuing conflagarations, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali left the country. Ben Ali's Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi briefly took over as acting president before he handed power over to parliamentary speaker Fouad Mebazaaafter the head of Tunisia's Constitutional Court, Fethi Abdennadher, declared that Ghannouchi did not have right to take power and Mebazaa would have 60 days to organise a new general election.For his part, Mebazaa said it was in the country's best interest to form a National Unity government.
Ben Ali's Constitutional Democratic Rally considered changing its name (retaining the "Constitution" part in some form) and running in the general election on an anti-Islamist platform. However, the party was banned on 6 February 2011 and dissolved on 9 March 2011.
Upon being elected in 2011, the Troika coalition made a "moral pledge" to cede power within a year. However, Ennahdha and its allies, the Congress for the Republic and Ettakatol, are still in power and yet the constituent assembly has not finalized a new constitution. This has led to the opposition accusing the government of overstaying their implicit term and also of using intimidation to try to silence dissent. The opposition also accused the government of using the constituent assembly to push through legislation that would enable them to stay in power. Former speaker of the assembly, Ettakatol’s Mustapha Ben Jaafar then supported the opposition's call for a non-partisan government after he dissolved of the assembly in August. Ennahda, on the other hand, fears that some parts of the opposition are trying to keep it from regaining power and have been emboldened by the August 2013 Egyptian raids. At the same time, a Gallup poll suggested that Tunisians were losing faith in their government.
The head of the Higher Political Reform Commission, Yadh Ben Achour, warned that Tunisia risked anarchy if the transitional period is not handled with care, as institutions and mechanisms of the state are either in disarray or still tainted by links to Ben Ali's regime. Ben Achour also stated that the commission was unsure whether it would be better to reform the constitution or elect a constitutional assembly to write a completely new one, but that it had to be decided soon, as the public was growing tired of waiting. He also confirmed elections would not be held by 15 March 2011 as theoretically stipulated by the constitution, pointing to force majeure as legitimate grounds for taking longer until the election. The election has been delayed further by the annulment of 36 candidates who were elected to Tunisia's board of elections. The election board will be created by giving the candidates list to the constituent assembly, thus bypassing the judiciary, which cannot review plenary sessions of the constituent assembly.
