Tunisie à la croisée des chemins

Nous publions ci-dessous un chapitre du rapport relatif à la Tunisie Countries at the Crossroads 2005 : A Survey of Democratic Governance de l’année 2005 établi par Freedom House la célèbre ONG américaine fondée dans les années soixante par la femme du Président américain Roosevelt et très impliquée dans les événements qui ont touché l’Ukraine et la Géorgie.

Le rapport dresse un bilan assez sombre de la Tunisie et propose des orientations et une série de recommandations visant à lever les obstacles entravant les libertés et le processus de démocratisation du pays.

Le rapport est en anglais, pour télécharger :

In Tunisian politics, the leader of the RCD occupies the presidency and uses the power of the executive branch and the party’s political supremacy to dominate all aspects of public life. Party structures parallel the state’s administrative apparatus, and the president dominates both
through broad powers of appointment. [Editor’s note : Tunisia held presidential and parliamentary elections on October 24, 2004. President Ben Ali retained the presidency with 94 percent of the vote, while his three challengers each garnered between 1 percent and 4 percent of the vote. The RCD won every parliamentary seat save those reserved for the legal opposition parties. Of the latter, two of seven boycotted the election ; the remaining five acquired 37 of 189 seats. The only independent observers who monitored the election were 10 Arab League representatives ; domestic human rights groups’ requests to do so were denied. Critics of the regime accused it of falsifying the results.]

The executive branch dwarfs the legislature. Cabinet members are appointed by and responsible to the president, not parliament. The legislature is in session just six months a year ; when it is not, the president may rule by decree. Members of parliament have neither office space nor professional staffs. While they may in theory draft legislation, presidential initiatives have priority. The executive can count on the legislature to ratify laws because 80 percent of its seats are held by ruling-party representatives. While on paper the legislature has the right to vote down legislation proposed by the president and exercise no-confidence votes against his cabinet, it never does either. Members of parliament can question ministers and raise concerns about bills during parliamentary sessions, where policy debates can be vigorous. Still, the legislature cannot alter legislation in substantial ways. [depot legal process) ; these receipts are withheld from troublemaking publications. The depot legal requirement extends to all printed matter, and while there is no specific policy, creative works that are explicitly political and critical of the regime are likely to be suppressed.

[1] Susan E. Waltz, Human Rights and Reform : Changing the Face of North African Politics(Berkeley and Los Angeles : University of California Press, 1995), 60.

[2] Michele Penner Angrist, “Parties, Parliament and Political Dissent in Tunisia,” Journal of
North African Studies 4, 4 (Winter 1999) : 89–104, 98.

[3] Ibid., 100.

[4] Yath Ben Achour, “Tunisia,” in Herbert M. Kritzer, ed., Legal Systems of the World : A Political, Social, and Cultural Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara : ABC-CLIO, 2002), 1651–1657, 1654.

[5] Stephen J. King, Liberalization Against Democracy : The Local Politics of Economic Reform in Tunisia (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 2003).

[6] “Tunisia 2004 : Manifesto of Progressive Tunisian Democrats,” issued 20 March 2001, Journal of Democracy’s Documents on Democracy, 12, 3 (2001) : 183–186, 184. See also Emma Murphy, “Ten Years On—Ben Ali’s Tunisia,” Mediterranean Politics 2, 3
(Winter 1997) : 114–122, 119.

[7] Emma C. Murphy, “Women in Tunisia : Between State Feminism and Economic Reform,” in Eleanor Abdella Doumato and Marsha Pripstein Posusney, eds., Women and Globalization in the Middle East : Gender, Economy, and Society (Boulder : Lynne Rienner, 2003), 169–194, 178–180.

[8] Eva Bellin, Stalled Democracy : Capital, Labor, and the Paradox of State-Sponsored Development(Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2002), 56–57, 80.

[9] Angrist, 95.

[10] “Human Rights Lawyers and Associations Under Siege in Tunisia” (New York : Human Rights Watch, 17 March 2003), http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/men….

[11] “Worldwide Press Freedom Index” (Paris : Reporters without Borders), http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_….

[12] Neil MacFarquhar, “Tunisia’s Tangled Web Is Sticking Point for Reform,” New York
Times, 25 June 2004, A3.

[13] Larbi Sadiki, “Bin Ali’s Tunisia : Democracy by Non-Democratic Means,” British Journal
of Middle Eastern Studies 29, 1 (2002) : 57–78, 71.