The revolution is won… now comes the hard part

After standing up to beatings, imprisonment and snipers with orders to kill, Tunisia’s revolutionaries are facing a new threat on the path to democracy: confusion.

With elections less than two months away, residents in the cradle of the Arab Spring are showing signs of bewilderment in a revolution they had hoped would create jobs and ease poverty, but which has instead spawned scores of political parties and a transition process with no end in sight.

The 23-year rule of president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali ended abruptly when he fled in the face of widespread protests over unemployment, corruption and oppression – a spectacular success that sparked uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world.

But if you use the word “revolution” in Tunisia these days, people are just as likely to think you’re talking about the war in neighbouring Libya as the events of January.

Tunisia’s interim government set elections for 23 October, in which voters will be asked to choose from among 80 political parties to form a 218-member National Constituent Assembly charged with drafting a constitution within a year.

It will be the former French colony’s first free vote since independence in 1956 and will be closely watched in a region seeking to replace dictatorships with democracy.

Analysts fear that low public support for the process – which provides no timetable for presidential or legislative elections – will undermine the transition’s legitimacy and could set off another round of street unrest.

Just over half of Tunisians believe the transition is “incomprehensible”, according to a survey conducted by the Tunis Afrique Presse and the Institute of Opinion Surveys and Processing of Information Polls released on 3 September.

And only just over half of the seven million eligible voters have registered to vote.

A separate survey released in July by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems showed only 43 per cent of Tunisian adults correctly identified the poll as a constituent assembly election.

Among Tunisia’s best-recognised political parties are the Progressive Democratic Party and the Islamist Ennahda party.

Ennahda, a party banned under Ben Ali but which is believed now to have broad support, withdrew in June from the committee the interim government created to prepare the elections.

A spokesman for Ennahda said he was not worried by low voter registration, saying he expected voters to register on the day of the poll and that final turn-out would be high.But the secretary-general of the formerly banned party CPR issued a statement this week warning the country could not afford to allow the transition process to be derailed.

“If the formal transition process leads to disputes regarding the very legitimacy of the country’s institutions, there is a chance we could see rising unrest – particularly if influential parties like Ennahda turn to street politics,” said Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, analyst at London-based global risk consultancy Control Risks.

Worries the interim authority – whose president is Fouad Mebazaa and whose prime minister is Beji Caid Sebsi – are intent on dragging out the transition in order to stay in power could pose a threat.

“It would be really surprising if the vote were to proceed smoothly,” said Kamran Bokhari, vice-president of Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs for United States-based global intelligence company Stratfor.

“The fact that there have never been free and fair elections alone raises serious questions about the possibility of smooth elections. On top of that we have the concerns of various opposition groups about the intentions of the military-backed interim authority,” he said.

Ben Ali took power in a bloodless coup in 1987 after post-independence president Habib Bourguiba fell ill.

In the Lafayette district of Tunis, where rubbish is piling up in the gutters, flower-seller Mohammed says the Tunisian revolution has run into its problems. But he was hopeful they could be overcome.

“There was a time when speaking of Ben Ali or the government could land you in prison or get you killed. The secret police were everywhere. No-one could talk about the fact that the president was sweeping the poor under the rug,” he said.

“Whatever happens now, at least it will be better than that.”