Summary: Tunisia’s problems deeper than a “Jasmine revolution”. Security linked to Libya.
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2 thoughts on “Tunisia: sweating it out”
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Security is an issue for external investors – although more so for foreign travellers. The key is indeed the economy (although there is also an aspect of expectation management: there are fewer well-paid graduate jobs in Tunisia than many Tunisian graduates would like), and finding decent work in the marginal (S / inland) areas.
One major issue is the investment climate, in particular protectionism and corruption, both of which probably need considerable external support to get through against entrenched domestic interests. Under Ben Ali, the economy was skewed in the favour of his clique, and not enough of that seems to have been dismantled.
There is also the issue of countering corruption, yet according to CEIP: “Article 130 of the 2014 constitution requires parliament to set up a permanent anti-corruption body to take over the work of the temporary INLUCC. INLUCC has been chronically underfunded and understaffed: fewer than a dozen judges are handling the more than 9000 corruption cases that it has compiled and presented. Amor’s report, the fate of INLUCC, and the failure to set up a permanent anti-corruption body suggest there has been no political will to seriously tackle corruption.” That looks like a relatively easy avenue for UK plc to support Tunisia – particularly on the day of the global anti-corruption conference!
On James Spencer’s corruption points, quite a political stir has been provoked by the revelations of an online Tunisian group called Inkyfada which has been investigating Tunisian links within the leaked Panama Papers – as detailed in this Carnegie report of yesterday.