There is much in Tunisia’s new constitution – finally approved this week by an overwhelming majority of the transitional National Constituent Assembly – about which the country and the region can be proud. The first is the mere achievement of finding consensus after an extraordinary revolution and a turbulent three years. More than that is the clause that guarantees an equal number of men and women in parliament – a clause unknown not merely in the Middle East but in most of the West. Tunisia already has a far higher proportion of female MPs than the United States and the UK, but this enshrines a clause that many in the Arab world and Europe would welcome in their own countries.
There is a wider point about the new constitution. It represents something of a counter to the Islamist wave that appeared to be sweeping the post-Arab Spring countries. Islamist groups, as the best organised parties, were expected to do well after the fall of the leaders of Arab republics in 2011. In some places they did – in Egypt, of course, the Islamists of the Freedom and Justice party performed well in elections and then won the presidency. In Yemen, the Islamists of Islah looked set to dominate the transition. In Tunisia, the Islamists of Ennahda dominated the constituent assembly.
But gradually there was a counter-wave. In Libya’s elections in 2012, the Islamists were beaten. In Yemen, Islah was sidelined by the Southern Movement, which both rejected the Muslim Brotherhood and pushed for separation from the north. In Egypt, rising popular discontent led to Mohammed Morsi being removed by the military. In Syria in recent weeks, the Free Syrian Army has fought back against Islamist militias. And in Tunisia, Ennahda accepted a compromise agreement with its rivals and stepped down in September last year.
That’s a positive step. It is to be hoped that it will be followed by more politics – in particular, better-articulated secular politics. This is something the region needs as part of its political mix, which includes everyone from seculars to religious moderate – not the enforced secularism of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak.
In general, all these countries need more and better political parties, arguing in favour of their own political vision, rather than merely against the past or the status quo. What the counter-wave against Islamism shows is that there is wide support for these secular ideas, even if, in the immediate aftermath of the Arab Spring, they were not well-organised.
