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Though having almost no parliamentarian tradition, Tunisians have succeeded in creating, defending, and pushing their interim assembly that, despite major problems, transformed into a real parliament. Surrounded by the pressure of Islamists and civil activists, Tunisia’s deputies have managed to achieve something unique in the Arab world: making the parliament the centrepiece of political discourse and power.

The secularists understood that they could not exclude the Islamists from the political process, but that they had to take up the struggle, try to include them into the discourse and bring them down politically. Second, the Islamists understood that they do not have a majority that permits them to rule the country alone; in a painful internal process, Ennahda developed its ability to compromise and to join alliances with non-Islamist parties.

Despite radically different attitudes and levels of experience, deputies from all factions took their task overwhelmingly seriously and debated in an open and fruitful atmosphere. The time factor was decisive here. Though criticised by some as “lengthy” and “not efficient”, the fact that the NCA took two and a half years (instead of one as planned) contributed to the creation of cross-party trust – which became one of the “secrets” behind NCA’s success.

Tunisia’s deputies have managed to achieve something unique in the Arab world: making the parliament the centrepiece of political discourse and power

Though having almost no parliamentarian tradition, Tunisians have succeeded in creating, defending, and pushing their interim assembly that, despite major problems, transformed into a real parliament

With 37% of all votes, Ennahda clearly bypassed the Congress for the Republic Party (CPR) of state president Moncef Marzouki (8,7%) and Ettakatol led by NCA president Mostapha Ben Jafaar (7,03%) and secured more votes (1.5 mio.) than all other parties and independent candidates in parliament together (1.26 mio.)

the motorcycle-riding, leftist, feminist, pro-LGBTQ Canan Kaftancioglu, Istanbul district head for the Republican People’s Party (CHP).

Kaftancioglu is widely recognized at home as a key factor in her party’s success battling President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. She is both a public iconoclast and a tireless behind-the-scenes worker—and at 48 years old, a symbol of generational change in a party traditionally dominated by older men. Her style of politics is an implicit rejection of the nationalist faction of her own party

Since becoming Istanbul district head 2018, she’s poured energy into teaming up with other opposition parties, mobilizing young professionals, and developing a new approach—grassroots in organization, conciliatory in tone—to win over segments of the population that had previously often been ignored by the party.

the elections have afforded the regime room to breathe

For the moment, the state seems confident that it commands the loyalty of the silent majority. For years, polls have found that most Jordanians are politically conservative, holding positive impressions of the king and royal family and darker views of political parties -- including the Islamists. Jordan has long been regarded as an oasis of stability compared to its neighbors who have faced invasion, foreign occupation and insurrection. Polls and interviews indicate that Jordanians put a high premium on a sense of security, the maintenance of which is of course a mainstay of regime rhetoric.

The opposition, on the other hand, draws its strength primarily from concerns about the economy and complaints about corruption in the cabinet and Parliament. Many in the opposition also note the state’s well-documented history of using “political reform” as a sop to critics. [3] In tough times, the regime pledges to open up the political system, but then offers changes that do little to alter the established power structure.

This day has naturally triggered despondency in a movement that has long used anniversary protests to rebound from despair. Only a few months ago, activists were telling themselves that having toppled two presidents, Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and Mohammed Morsi in 2013, it could easily topple a third. But now they see both their key symbol - Tahrir - and their favorite tactic - street protest - appropriated by their opponents.

If al-Sissi nominates himself for president, as seems increasingly likely, he will face the long-term challenge of presiding over a state and an economy that are far more delicate than they were under Mubarak. However, unlike Mubarak, el-Sissi has a confident and committed mass following that believes Egypt needs a strong Nasser- or de Gaulle-style leader. Unlike Morsi, he has the full loyalty of the security forces and the bureaucracy.

The overthrow of an unelected leader usually brings an outpouring of goodwill and an incentive for all previously excluded parties to participate in the political process, which, if well-handled (it wasn't in Egypt), can bring about a successful transition. The overthrow of an elected leader favors force over procedure, creates a disincentive for parties to participate in peaceful politics, and polarizes the country - all factors that make a successful transition to pluralistic democracy less possible.

if history gives cause for optimism regarding the opposition’s prospects for success, it also gives cause for caution. Their primary goals achieved, the coalitions leading the past century’s three reform movements quickly crumbled, riven by conflicting objectives and ideologies. After the Constitutionalists ousted the shah’s prime minister and convened a parliament, they quickly found themselves pitted against clergy advocating an Islamic state. By 1911, Russian troops had shelled and disbanded the parliament, leading clerics had been executed, and Iran was controlled by the Russians in the north and the British in the south. Two years after coming to power, the coalition led by the National Front was similarly fractured, and communist partisans were the strongest force in the streets. A U.S.- and British-organized coup soon ousted Mossadeq. And finally, in the months after the Islamic republic was established, Khomeini’s Iran plunged into bloody violence between competing factions. The regime likely only survived due to the unifying effect of the war with Iraq in 1980. The international community should not worry that the Green Movement is doomed, but it should harbor no illusions that its success would inevitably lead to peace and democracy in the long term. Indeed, the United States and its allies should be considering not only how best to support the democratic aspirations of Iranians but also how to prepare for the real possibility of instability in Iran should the opposition prevail.

The tacit contract that has defined the North African country since its independence in 1956 is the ‘bread’ provision - mostly subsidies - in return for political deference. With modest resources, Tunisia has historically funded subsidies of strategic commodities - bread, sugar, tea, coffee, kerosene - and education, health, housing in some cases, and even recreational activities, such as sport. The National Solidarity Fund and the National Employment Fund, still under centralised control, have had some successes. They have partly shifted the burden of providence from the state to society. Tunisians dug into their pockets to volunteer what little of their non-disposable income they have to the cause of poverty alleviation, and improvements of the so-called ‘shadow zones’ (bidon-villes), the misery belt suffocating the rich towns and suburbs. But even this system of quid pro quo bread and political deference has failed many Tunisians, leaving many hopeless and jobless.

The state is a control-freak to the point that it disallows the existence of any hint of an informal economy. There is one in Italy - even in America - but not in Tunisia. If the state is partly failing in its provision of jobs, then it is unwise to ban informal trade and work. A youth empowered by education but disempowered by marginalization can be the spark that ignites social upheaval and social tension. In Tunisia, marginalization is today being translated into irrational and tragic suicides.

the notion of ‘total state’ and ‘total politics’ may not be apt for successful social engineering and re-distribution. Total control can translate into loss of control.

Outside the years 1999 to 2009, when he headed the judiciary, Shahroudi served from 1995 until his death as member of the Guardian Council, the powerful conservative watchdog that ensures the Islamic consistency and compatibility of parliamentary legislation and electoral candidates alike. He was likewise in the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body that selects the supreme leader’s successor, and a member of the Expediency Council, created toward the end of the Iran-Iraq War to adjudicate disagreements between parliament and the Guardian Council; this council subsequently also began advising the supreme leader on the broad contours of policy and strategy. After the 2017 death of its chairman—Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a highly influential former president—Khamenei tapped Shahroudi as his replacement. Shahroudi was therefore clearly a figure Khamenei could rely on, a figure the supreme leader recently eulogized as a “faithful executor in the Islamic Republic’s most important institutions.”

Shahroudi presided over a witch hunt against reformist parliamentarians and newspapers, students and intellectuals, human rights activists and, at the end of his tenure, the pro-reformist Green Movement protesting against the fraudulent elections that handed Ahmadinejad a second term

Shahroudi is reported to have overseen, directly or indirectly, some 2,000 executions, including of minors

The uncertainty and high stakes involved in the election confirms the importance of genuine electoral competition within the bounds of the Iranian political system and the serious role given to popular input and participation — as opposed to other Muslim states in the Middle East.

The degree of mobilization, campaigning, investment and consensus-building within the conservative camp was unprecedented in the past two decades

While Rouhani had relied on the reformists since his 2013 election, he adopted their rhetoric in the final stretch of the campaign to a degree above and beyond his prior bounds.

Though seemingly unprecedented, the weekend’s developments follow the pattern Mohammed bin Salman has used since the beginning of his rapid ascent to power in 2015. In both domestic and foreign affairs, he has consistently undertaken sudden and wide-ranging campaigns for unclear reasons which shatter prevailing norms. At home, this audacious political strategy has proven relatively successful — at least in the short term. Abroad, foreign policy gambits such as the intervention in Yemen and the blockade of Qatar have rapidly degenerated into damaging quagmires. This combination of domestic success and foreign policy failure helps makes sense of this weekend’s blizzard of activity and may help preview what comes next.

Where Saudi state institutions are strong enough to mitigate the effects of provocative policies, international politics are less forgiving and have fewer safety nets. Virtually every major foreign policy initiative Mohammed bin Salman has championed has proved disastrous, often producing precisely the negative results that the move had been designed to prevent

The intervention in Yemen has been an unmitigated disaster

the country’s tourism sector has slumped dramatically. Foreign travelers booked 29 million nights in Tunisian hotels in 2014, but a year later that figure had plummeted to 16 million. In a country where 11.5 percent of workers are employed in the tourism sector, and the livelihoods of many more are affected by its performance, the impact has been devastating.

pervasive cronyism, which allows well-connected insiders to seek rents in lucrative markets while using bureaucratic allies to prevent potential competitors from challenging them

A 2014 World Bank report found that the Tunisian tourism sector accounts for a whopping 25 percent of the country’s non-performing loans — which, as the authors noted, “mask the problems in the tourism sector and contribute to them by channeling credit to less productive entrepreneurs and by freezing liquidity that would otherwise have circulated.

Erica Chenweth begins “Trends in Nonviolent Resistance and State Response: Is Violence Towards Civilian-based Movements on the Rise?” (Global Responsibility to Protect[1], July 2017) with the following rather discouraging statement, at least if you’re a protester: Through 2010, nonviolent mass movements tended to be surprisingly effective in removing incumbent leaders from power or achieving territorial independence, even when they experienced some repression from the government. However, since 2010, the success rates of nonviolent campaigns have declined by a staggering rate (about 20% below the average)

She speculates that the cause of the this decline is due to Authoritarian Adaptation: the ability of authoritarian governments to adopt more politically savvy repressive tools may be part of the reason for the decline in success rates in the past six years.21. Authoritarian leaders have begun to develop and systematize sophisticated techniques to undermine and thwart nonviolent activists.

Dana R. Fisher, Kenneth T. Andrews, Neal Caren, Erica Chenoweth, Michael T. Heaney, Tommy Leung, L. Nathan Perkins, and Jeremy Pressman in “The science of contemporary street protest: New efforts in the United States” (Science Advances, October 23, 2019). This is a fascinating article, which I encourage all big data fans to read in full. From the abstract: This article reviews the two most central methods for studying street protest on a large scale: building comprehensive event databases and conducting field surveys of participants at demonstrations.

The authoritarian normalization that continues to mark relations between Turkey’s political and military echelons since the 2016 failed coup is now affecting the policymaking process in the country's defense industry. The industry is the new favorite of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as the bruising financial crisis heavily hit his former favorite sector, construction.

Four major reasons are behind Erdogan's piqued interest in the defense industry: First, Erdogan's popular support drastically increased after Turkey’s Oct. 9 incursion into Syria, known as Operation Peace Spring. Second, the defense industry is a good tool for producing success stories to divert public attention at a time of economic crisis. Third, success in the defense realm offers political gains in foreign policy. And finally, it creates profitable export opportunities to several countries including Qatar, Pakistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and some African nations.

In December 2017, Erdogan issued a decree placing TSKGV under his auspices. Since then, however, Erdogan hasn’t quite managed to establish full control over the institution, which mainly remains under the influence of the retired generals.

The civilian wing of the Sudanese state is bankrupt but unwilling to confront powerful generals, who control a sprawling network of companies and keep the central bank and the Ministry of Finance on life support to gain political power

Chronic shortages of basic goods and soaring inflation have come to define the life of ordinary Sudanese. In villages and towns that rely on gasoline pumps – such as Port Sudan – the taps have often run dry, forcing people to queue to buy barrels of water.

Western countries and international institutions have let the civilian wing of the government down: they failed to provide the financial and political support that would allow Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to hold his own against the generals

The only country to emerge as a democratic success story from the so-called Arab Spring protests of 2011, Tunisia now appears to have returned to one-man rule.

Saied set up a system under which he would essentially govern Tunisia by decree, bypassing the 2014 Constitution that the country had proudly adopted after years of painstaking consultations and negotiations. Effectively, Tunisia is back to the authoritarian status it had under Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the despot who ruled from 1987 until his fall in 2011.

“We are all Kais Saied, we are all Tunisia,” they shouted on the main thoroughfare in Tunis, declaring that “the people want the dissolution of parliament”. This despite warnings of a return to authoritarian rule by members of parliament, the powerful Tunisia General Labour Union (UGTT), political activists and a group of 15 local and international Tunis-based NGOs.

On Feb. 24, Russia invaded Ukraine, and sanctions imposed on Russia by Western states led to surging food, fuel, and fertilizer prices. Burkina Faso saw two successful coups and a third foiled putsch. There were failed power grabs in São Tomé and Príncipe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and against Mali’s military junta, sparked by armed groups’ escalating attacks and creeping inflation on food and services. It was a continuation of a trajectory set in 2021, a year that saw four successful coups in Africa (in Chad, Guinea, Mali, and Sudan).

Tunisia is just one of many countries experiencing a rollback of democratic gains. Amid an economic crisis worsened by the pandemic and made even more acute by the war in Ukraine, democratic backsliding is increasing. As reported in Africa Brief this year, Sudan’s democratic future still hangs in the balance, and Mali’s putsch leaders agreed to a two-year democratic transition that would allow coup leader Col. Assimi Goïta and other military members to run in general elections in 2024. Ibrahim Traoré, an army captain in Burkina Faso, proclaimed himself the new president of the country’s military junta in the country’s second coup in eight months while Guinea’s military rulers issued a three-year ban on public demonstrations to combat growing calls for democracy. And around 50 people were killed by security forces as Chadians took to the streets to demand a quicker transition to democratic rule.

Recent elections in Kenya and Angola showed democratic gains as Kenyans defied their outgoing president’s chosen successor and young Angolans increasingly challenged their one-party state. Africans want more democracy even if their leaders want less of it.