Tunisian public opinion divided over Mauritanian coup

11/08/2008

The Mauritanian military's recent takeover of the state has raised questions about democratic transition in Tunisia.

By Jamel Arfaoui for Magharebia in Tunis – 11/08/08

[Getty Images] Tunisian public opinion is divided on the coup led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz in Mauritania.

Tunisian public opinion on last week's coup d'état in Mauritania is divided. While some condemn the military takeover as a violation of constitutional process, others say the country's democratic institutions were too fragile to handle disagreements over deposed President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdellahi's policies and actions.

Tunisian opposition figure Moncef Marzouki spoke out against the coup, calling for "legitimacy [to] be restored to the state and the presidency to the President who has been elected by the people".

"[T]he people who elected the president are the only people who are qualified to evaluate the candidate they selected in the elections, and they can sack whoever they want and renew their support for whoever they want," Marzouki told Tunis News on Thursday (August 7th).

As a member of a committee commissioned by the Arab Committee for Human Rights to observe last year's elections in Mauritania, Marzouki appreciated the country's democratic electoral process.

"I will not hide from you, dear brothers, that we, as Tunisians [observing the elections in Nouakchott], felt a little bit jealous while we were moving in the middle of a capital where one could feel the breeze of freedom in every corner … The thing that astonished us most was the accurate organisation of the elections. We couldn't believe what we were seeing," said Marzouki.

Once coming to power, however, President Abdellahi faced opposition and was accused of trying to protect his wife against accusations of corruption.

Tunisian government employee Samir ben Othmane told Magharebia he was in favour of sacking Abdellahi because "he allowed his wife to tamper with the Mauritanian people's money and [he] obstructed justice."

Although he condemned the coup, Zied El Heni, a member of the National Union of Tunisian Journalists, described "the enormity of the mistake committed by the ousted President when he tried to disrupt the state's constitutional institutions to prevent any accountability of his wife in corruption-related cases".

El Heni added that the toppling of President Abdellahi was "an embodiment of the fragility of the democratic institutions in our region".

"The question we are asking is: if the Constitution had included provisions for holding the president accountable and for preventing any deviation with power, would the situation have evolved in this way?"

"[T]he regrettable thing in these developments is the official Maghreb silence over the coup. A consensus among the leaders of Tunisia, Libya, Algeria and Morocco to condemn the coup and to reject dealing with its consequences would have given an indication that a new spirit has been born in the region."

A number of Tunisians feel that efforts to instil such a "new sprit" in Mauritania have been too hasty.

Political analyst Borhane Besais commented in El Sabah last Thursday that "Transitional President Ould Vall's handover of power [following the March 2007 election of Abdellahi] was a gross mistake that denied the transitional stage a longer period of time that would have gradually prepared the civil institutions to take over power and would have established stable traditions for party plurality".

Mourad Allala, of the pro-government Al-Sahafa newspaper, told Magharebia, "I had hoped that the transitional period would be longer..."

"In the West," he added, "it took them decades to establish democracy and they paid a huge price to protect it. Therefore, Mauritanians should have started to modernize society, instil the values of citizenship and encourage citizens to participate in running their country's affairs."