The Pasha's Smile: Tunisia's Zine Elabidine Ben Ali, one of North Africa's "soft" dictators, was re-elected in a show election in October, with some 90% of the popular vote. (Omar Rashidi/PPO via Getty Images)
I must have missed it. Or maybe not: when a Middle East dictator wins yet another election by a crushing margin, has en election taken place? Not really. The Oct. 25 election in Tunisia was good for some flashy PR fodder for Zine Elabidine Ben Ali, the country's self-appointed president for life, but not much else. Tunisia, like North African neighbors Morocco, Libya, Egypt and Algeria, is (as the Economist aptly put it) a one-man show.
Ben Ali, ruling since November 1987, when he seized power by way of Middle Eastern leaders' favored yellow-brute road (a coup), won with 90% of the vote, supposedly his lowest tally yet. In 1989, 1994 and 1999 he won with the sort of margin Saddam Hussein and Muammar el Qaddafi would be proud of (99%). In 2004 he got just 95%. There was a reason. He wanted to show George W. Bush, who was high on illusions of bringing democracy to the Middle East, that there is an opposition in Tunisia. Contending with similar illusions from Barack Obama, Ben Ali must have been in an even more generous mood, allowing three pre-approved opposition candidates (Mohammed Bouchiha, Ahmed Inoubli and Ahmed Brahim, the latter the only one to dare criticize the regime on occasion) to claim a few votes.
But Tunisia's electoral system is like Iran's: it has all the appearance of a democratic system but none of its authenticity. Candidates for the presidency in Tunisia had to be approved by Ben Ali's Constitutional Council, which is like Iran's Guardian Council. Ben Ali is the equivalent of the Supreme Leader, minus the religious conceits.
There's a legislature, but it's dominated by Ben Ali's Constitutional and Democratic Union party, which is neither constitutional nor democratic. According to the Tunisian constitution, Ben Ali was to be limited to two terms. Every time he wanted another one (he's up to five now, almost as many as Robert C. Byrd's U.S. Senate run) he had the legislature amend the constitution. The constitution also bars a president older than 75 to run again. Not a bad idea (especially in the United States, where doddering presidents or would-be dodderers have a dismal record). Ben Ali is 73. In five years, if his constricting heart hasn't caught up with him, look for him to change that provision, too, though he might run into his own precedents at that point: he legitimized his coup in 1987 by claiming that his predecessor, Habib Bourguiba, 84 at the time, was senile.
Yet Europe and the United States consider Ben Ali a dear friend for three reasons. He runs a relatively growth-friendly economy that he converted from socialism. He represses jihadists and fundamentalists brutally. And Tunisia is a favored European and American vacation spot. In exchange, western governments keep mum about Ben Ali slamming democracy, silencing any media that doesn't spit-polish his tassels and buttons, and torturing anything that moves against him in Tunisia's prisons, which share Egypt's, Morocco's and Algeria's compulsion for sadism.
American taxpayers bankroll some of Ben Ali's dictatorship to the tune of about $20 million a year. The U.S. Congress salved its conscience recently by approving a $12 million appropriation in aid to Tunisia with a few wagging words, noting that "restrictions on political freedom, the use of torture, imprisonment of dissidents, and persecution of journalists and human rights defenders are of concern and progress on these issues is necessary for the partnership between the United States and Tunisia to further strengthen."
But nothing along those lines has changed for decades and the partnership continues. In Tunisia as elsewhere in North Africa's shimmering coastal dictatorships, Club Med trumps liberty and democracy.
See Also:
- Ben Ali: Profile
- Tunisia: Country Profile
- Tunisia Still Blocking Human Rights Monitors from Its Prisons
- Will Hillary Clinton Dare Unveil Morocco's Hypocrisy?
- Dictatorial Dynasty in Egypt: From One Mubarak to Another
- Not So Fast on Tuinisian Gunning for Octomom's Record
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