Can Essebsi's 'Call for Tunisia' Movement Unite the Opposition? - By Erik Churchill | T... - 0 views
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The Call for Tunisia features a broad spectrum of former regime officials together with secular liberals. The former regime officials, or RCDists (from the Constitutional Democratic Rally), were excluded from running in the last elections and see in the new initiative a chance to revive their political prospects. (There was no such cleansing of the actual government administrations -- only positions in the Constituent Assembly). These officials and their supporters oftentimes criticize the current government as incompetent and unable to manage the complexity of government. They try to deflect criticisms of the rampant corruption and stasi-like police state of the past, by pointing to the (very real) progress achieved under Bourguiba and Ben Ali. They cite statistics on women's rights, improvements in education, and infrastructure development, and they compare Tunisia with its neighbors in the Maghreb and throughout Africa. Their motives are clear -- keep the good and throw out the bad of the former regime.
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challenge will be to integrate their liberal values into what is at heart a conservative party
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While Ennahda supporters talk about the extremism of Bourguiba/Ben Ali regarding Islamic practices (including banning the veil and a very liberal interpretation of Ramadan -- not to mention the systematic torture and imprisonment of Islamists themselves), many Tunisians felt comfortable being Muslim under the former regime. It is fair to say that many (though certainly not all) Tunisians did not feel that their religion was under assault under the previous secular regime
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Electing a New Libya - carnegieendowment.org - Readability - 0 views
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there remain questions about the government’s capability to provide security at polling stations. It has “deputized” a number of militias in major cities as part of its security plan. And there have been some very vocal calls for an election boycott in the east by Islamist and pro-federalism leaders, as well as attacks on election offices. The government reportedly has a plan to “freeze” the voting at polling places where there is violence or disruption, which could result in a de-facto invalidation of the results
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The postponement of a few weeks was simply a technical delay. Libya’s transitional authorities were behind schedule in registering voters and in other preparations for the election. According to the accounts of the United Nations and several NGO observers, the delay was fully justified and not nefarious in any way.
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for most of the main parties, the experience of campaigning and articulating a party platform is completely new. For many, the metric of voter support is how many posters are produced or media ads are running on television.
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The Morsi Maneuver: a first take - Blog - The Arabist - 0 views
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Morsi has effectively, on paper, dictatorial powers. It will largely come down to how he uses them, especially as the last thing Egypt needs is a government unable to make decisions and address urgent problems simply because the parliament is not in place.
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many will still wait for the Christian and female VPs he promised to appoint
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I would not be surprised if public opinion backs not so much Morsi but the sense of things finally moving forward again
Cairo's new Cabinet proves how little has really changed - The National - 0 views
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blame falls first and foremost to the military's handling of the post-Mubarak period, the greed and other failings of his Muslim Brothers and other political parties, and the inability of revolutionaries to turn their symbolic capital into a political vision. The present situation is also a reminder of how "sticky" bad old habits of governance in Egypt are, and the extent to which the question of why the country was so badly run for so many years extended far beyond the dull rule of Hosni Mubarak.
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the Brotherhood and the generals do have some power, but far more significant is their lack of power and legitimacy in imposing themselves against each another, and upon society
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the Brotherhood and the generals do have some power, but far more significant is their lack of power and legitimacy in imposing themselves against each another, and upon society
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Boston Review - Madawi Al-Rasheed: No Saudi Spring - 0 views
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Unlike Egypt and Tunisia, Saudi Arabia has no civil society of any significance. As a result, online calls to protest—beloved of so many “cyber-utopians”—had no place to take root.
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The protests reflected a growing sense of disappointment with King Abdullah, who has failed to implement a single political demand from previous petitions. However, in spite of their disappointment, reformers from a wide range of political ideologies—Islamists, nationalists, leftists, and liberals—are being cautious because the future could be worse. Many intellectuals and professionals are haunted by the prospect of losing their positions when Crown Prince Nayif becomes king. Abdullah has developed a quasi-liberal constituency and cultivated its interest in the state, business, and media. Reformers nonetheless loyal to Abdullah fear that Nayif’s iron fist will come down on them: functionaries of the ancien régime to be replaced.
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Another group, the National Coalition and Free Youth Movement, formed on Facebook and Twitter in spite of having no offline organizational presence. Their Web pages would disappear amid government censorship only to reappear at different addresses. Many pages gathered thousands of supporters, but it is difficult to claim that all were authentic. Cyber-warfare pitted activists and non-ideological young men and women against regime security, complicating the headcount.
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Tunisia: Yezzi fock (It's enough!) | openDemocracy - 0 views
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If one looks closely at Tunisian society on the eve of independence in 1956, it is rather striking – there was most definitely what is referred to today as a highly developed `civil society’, with participation of most sectors of society in the political movement that led to independence. But that civil society was first seriously weakened by the country’s first president, Habib Bourguiba who saw it as a threat to his personal power. Then it was smothered by Ben Ali — or more accurately, Ben Ali tried to snuff it out. And yet despite everything, under the surface it has continued – until it erupted once again full force after the death of Mohammed Bouazzizi.
VOA | Tunisia Investigates Ousted President's Finances | Africa | English - 0 views
«Zinochet» ou le président à vie d'une dictature touristique - L'événement - ... - 0 views
Tunisians Demand Exclusion of Ben Ali Allies From Coalition - BusinessWeek - 0 views
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France was the colonial power in Tunisia until 1957, when Habib Bourguiba became president. Ben Ali took over from him in a bloodless coup in 1987.
Réponse à l'allocution du président Ben Ali : "Il refuse de voir la réalité s... - 0 views
Anti-government protests in Jordan continue - Monsters and Critics - 0 views
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They praised the Tunisian uprising that forced President Zine Al Abidine ben Ali to flee the country last week.
Did Iraq have something to do with Tunisia's uprising? - CSMonitor.com - 0 views
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The Obama Administration's policies towards the Arab world, largely focused on counterterrorism cooperation and avoiding pushing hard for political reform in autocracies like Egypt, are in fact an almost straight continuation of President Bush's approach, particularly in his second term.
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