Afrique

Avocat réforme Says Tunisie Risques Anarch

TUNIS — The head of a Tunisian government commission on political reform warned on Monday that the country risked falling into “anarchy” as it passed through what he described as a very dangerous post-revolutionary transition toward multi-party democracy.

“We might lose our freedom because we become too drunk on freedom,” said Yadh Ben Achour, a prominent lawyer who is the head of Tunisia’s Higher Political Reform Commission. “The risk is that everyone says what they want and does not think of the common good.”

Mr. Ben Achour’s commission is tasked with dismantling the repressive laws of the authoritarian government of former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who fled the country in January, leaving a vacuum of power.

Tunisia faces enormous challenges rebuilding its political system. The country’s caretaker government has been confronted with nearly daily protests by a variety of groups and the police force has been badly weakened by mass desertions and the firing of top officials. Provincial government offices remain dysfunctional and the judicial system is hobbled by its links to the ousted regime.

Abdelrazek Kilani, president of the Tunisian Bar Association, estimated that “about 100 judges are totally corrupt” and need to be removed. “They took bribes and followed orders from the Ministry of Justice,” Mr. Kilani said in an interview. “They convicted people because the ministry told them to.”

“Our worry is that the Ben Ali system is still in place,” he said.

Mr. Ben Achour of the commission on political reform said Tunisia would miss the two-month deadline stipulated in its Constitution for a presidential election to replace Mr. Ben Ali. “Every judicial system knows the concept of force majeure,” he said. It would be impossible to organize elections before March 15 deadline, he said.

Tunisians cannot on agree whether to change the current Constitution or discard it and elect a constitutional assembly that would write a new one, he said.

“We need to decide as soon as we can,” he said. “The public is tired of waiting.”

The commission may also help draft a new constitution, a process, he said, that risked being bogged down by politicians focusing on narrow interests and not the future of the country.

“This is what risks moving us toward anarchy,” Mr. Ben Achour said. “And we know that anarchy always leads to dictatorship — theocratic or military dictatorship.”

Source: New York Time