NEW YORK // Tunisia’s foreign minister has warned that turmoil in neighbouring Libya threatens to undermine his country’s still fragile democratic transition ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections.
“The instability of Libya has profound repercussions on the economic, security and political affairs of Tunisia,” said Mongi Hamdi, the foreign minister for Tunisia’s caretaker interim government. “We are in the process of building a new house, a new democracy, and there is a fire next door.”
The fighting between pro-government forces in Libya and a coalition of Islamist militias has continued even as representatives of the two sides meet for preliminary talks. The instability poses the greatest threat to the only post-Arab Spring country that has managed to balance competing political forces through a democratic process.
The violence has displaced about one out of every five Libyans into Tunisia — 1.5 million people — straining the country’s already in crisis economy, according to Mr Hamdi. Islamist militants and arms flow over Libya’s porous border with Tunisia. At the same time, the proxy battle between regional powers supporting the competing groups in Libya has fuelled polarisation on all sides of the political divide in Tunisia.
Mr Hamdi said Tunisia maintains relations with all sides in the conflict because “the Libyan problem will remain with us for many years and we don’t want to lose our credibility”. Coordinating a strategy with Egypt, which supports pro-government forces, is especially important, he added. “We both face the same challenge and we both need to talk to each other, consult — we have to trust each other.”
Three years of transition in Tunisia was marred by Islamist violence, assassinations of leftist leaders and unrest as the government failed to even begin to fix the deep-rooted economic pathologies that helped spark the Arab Spring.
The competing political factions were able to craft a widely praised constitution and the Islamist Ennahda party, which had dominated the previous election, agreed to cede power to a caretaker government amid the unrest. But the distrust and polarisation between the parties and within Tunisian society remains, and the dynamics in Libya and elsewhere in the region could make the pragmatic political compromises of Tunisia’s recent past more difficult to recreate after parliamentary elections later this month and a first round of presidential polls in November.
“In the Arab countries whoever wins thinks he has a green light to do whatever he wants,” Mr Hamdi said, speaking on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. “But power has to be shared inclusively, if they don’t want problems. Even if a big party wins, that party must involve other parties in power-sharing.”
Ennahda is expected to win the most seats in the upcoming parliamentary elections. The party has said it will not put forward a presidential candidate.
Key question are the nature of the unity government it will seek to form and what economic policies are likely to follow, said William Lawrence, director for Middle East and North Africa at the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy.
Under the first Ennahda government, Tunisia was given $1.5 billion by Qatar, a period that also saw relations sour with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, Gulf Arab countries that oppose Islamist groups.
But since the interim government was formed, Doha has not given new funds and Mr Hamdi said he has undertaken efforts to rebuild relations with all GCC countries, with a focus on attracting Gulf investors to Tunisia.
“Our policy is to have excellent and strategic relations with all Gulf countries, this is extremely important,” Mr Hamdi said. He has visited the GCC several times in the past eight months, he said, and will be making a trip to Abu Dhabi after the Eid holiday.
He said the talks will focus on security in Libya as well as Tunisia’s economy. The country is facing a $4-5 billion budget deficit, and foreign assistance from the US and Europe has fallen far short of meeting the immediate fiscal needs.
While cash is needed to shore up Tunisia’s heavily subsidised economy in the immediate term, Mr Hamdi said he wants the Gulf to play a role in helping with the long-term economic reform through investment in industry.
Investors from the UAE have put billions into the region but “Tunisia’s share is very little,” he said. “We are trying very hard to have strategic relations with the UAE so that investors will be more than welcome in Tunisia.”
Mr Hamdi said Tunisia wants “high-value investments” that create products and services that there is demand for in the global economy, and jobs for young Tunisians, thousands of whom have joined extremist groups in the Maghreb and in Syria and Iraq.
“We are also inviting Kuwaitis, Qataris … we are betting on our friends in the Gulf to come and invest, we are not asking for charity,” he said.
Tunisia’s strategy is to avoid taking sides in the Gulf, where a split has emerged between Doha, which supports Islamists, and Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, which see them as a destabilising force. “We cannot afford to have enemies,” Mr Hamdi said.
Seeking investments from a range of Gulf countries “could potentially have a neutralising effect on the influence of any one … country on Tunisia”, Mr Lawrence said. In Tunisia’s political atmosphere, where perceptions can be more significant than reality, balancing the competing regional countries is key.
But even such investments will not offer a panacea for the still unanswered question of how to balance long-term structural reform that reduces the subsidy-based economy, with the short-term government spending crucial for stability, Mr Lawrence added.
The economic issue, however, has become overshadowed by the threat of violence. Earlier this year, analysts said that the $500 million in loan guarantees given to Tunisia by the Obama administration, and April state visit, were partly a signal to Egypt that political compromise would be rewarded.
But in the following months, the metastasising violence across the Arab region has shifted the focus away from democratic transition to reinforcing stability and security.
Even Mr Hamdi tried to play down the significance of Tunisia’s singular democratic success, in favour of an emphasis on the country’s role in helping to stabilise the Maghreb. He claimed to be “sick and tired” of hearing world leaders say other countries should follow Tunisia’s model.
“It worked for Tunisia, it may not work for others. We don’t want to be a model, or export the Arab Spring,” he said. “What we want is to export our goods and services.”
tkhan@thenational.ae
