Nobel Peace Prize boosts Tunisian democracy efforts
TUNIS, Tunisia—It was the fall of 2013 and Tunisia’s newfound democracy was in grave danger. The assassination of a left-wing politician had prompted the opposition to walk out of the constitutional assembly. The government was paralyzed, the constitution unfinished and the country on the brink of war.
In nearby Egypt, which had followed Tunisia in a democratic revolution, a coup had just overthrown the Islamist government, and some sectors in Tunisia wanted to follow suit.
Then four civil society groups—the main labor union, the bar association, the employers’ association and the human rights league—stepped into the fray. Working together, they got the Islamists to agree to resign in favor of a caretaker government that would organize new elections, while the angry opposition returned to the table to complete the country’s constitution.
On Friday, that coalition—the National Dialogue Quartet— received the Nobel Peace Prize for its patient negotiating efforts, which carried Tunisia through an extended constitutional crisis and laid the groundwork for the only democracy that remains following the 2011 Arab Spring demonstrations.
The prize comes at an important time, as Tunisia faces a new crisis that is nearly as critical as the one it confronted in the fall of 2013: A pair of attacks against tourists earlier this year left more than 60 people dead, provoking fear and devastating Tunisia’s vital tourism sector, even as the faltering economy dragged support for the democratic process to historic lows.
The Nobel award also draws international attention to a region that is increasingly known more for the harrowing actions of the Islamic State group than the kind of compromise and negotiations that have allowed Tunisia to succeed.
The quartet was a long shot for the prize and none were more surprised than its actual members. Houcine Abbassi, the head of the labor union and the driving force in the 2013 negotiations, learned about the win from an Associated Press journalist.
“I am overwhelmed by this,” he said, recalling how the country had been on the brink of war. “It’s a prize that crowns more than two years of efforts deployed by the quartet when the country was in danger on all fronts.”