Tunisia enters new era of democracy

The lawmakers,who will be tasked with drafting a new constitution and paving the way to fresh elections,sang the national anthem as the session got under way in the Bardo palace on the outskirts of Tunis.

“I give thanks to God,to all those martyred and wounded and those who fought so we could witness this historic day,” Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi told AFP after the opening.

After longtime dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali’s ouster in January and internationally acclaimed polls on October 23,the inauguration marked yet another landmark in the Arab Spring trailblazers’ democratic revolution.

“This event is like a second independence for Tunisia,” said Ahmed Mestiri,an iconic figure in the struggle for Tunisia’s 1956 independence from France.

Several hundred demonstrators,including relatives of some of the protesters killed in the uprising,nevertheless greeted the newly-elected lawmakers at the Bardo palace with a warning.

“We’re watching you,” read some of the banners.

“We’re here to remind the lawmakers of the demands of the Tunisian revolution — dignity and freedom — and to tell them the Tunisian people have not handed them a blank cheque,” said Rafik Boudjaria of the Civic Front for Democracy and Tunisia.

Despite Ennahda’s assurances,some Tunisians have expressed concern that an Islamist-dominated Tunisia could roll back hard-earned rights such as the Code of Personal Status,seen notably as one of the Arab world’s most progressive sets of laws on women.

“Tunisia wants to hold up a model to society in which Islam is not a synonym of terrorism,fanaticism,extremism or hostility to democracy,” Ghannouchi said on Sunday during a visit to Algiers.

Speaking to AFP today,Ghannouchi — who does not sit in the assembly and insists he does not seek any official post in the new executive — promised to promote “a national reconciliation project… not a revenge project”.

Yesterday,Tunisia’s three main political parties formalised a power-sharing agreement hammered out in the aftermath of last month’s polls.

Ennahda’s Hamadi Jebali is to take the post of prime minister,the Congress for the Republic (CPR) party’s Moncef Marzouki will become president and Ettakatol’s Mustapha Ben Jaafar the chair of the new assembly.