Michael J. Totten touts the resignation of Tunisian prime minister Ali Larayedh as further evidence of the country’s progress:
Tunisia’s Islamist prime minister resigned [yesterday] and ceded power to a caretaker government. He was not overthrown by guerrillas or by the army, but by peaceful and legal means familiar to citizens raised in democracies. Tunisia is still the model for post-revolutionary politics in the Arab world. I expected as much at the outset and explained why three years ago. Morocco is the only Arab country in the entire world as politically mature. Egypt is an emergency room case, Libya could turn into a failed state if it’s not careful, and Syria is suffering near-apocalypse. Iraq is…well, it’s Iraq.
Noah Rayman is more cautious, pointing to the challenges ahead:
Under the plan, the Islamist-led government will relinquish power to a cabinet of technocrats ahead of a new round of elections. … But a government of technocrats is no panacea for a country at a crossroads. In one of his last moves before announcing his resignation, Larayedh suspended a new tax hike on vehicles after two days of protests in several cities that stirred clashes with police, the latest in a series of demonstrations fueled by the poor economy. More than 15 percent of Tunisians are unemployed, and that figure is even higher in the country’s interior — including the city of Sidi Bouzi, where a disgruntled street vendor set himself on fire in Dec. 2010 and instigated the initial wave of protests that sparked the Arab Spring. International lenders are all the while demanding more cuts to the government budget, which reached nearly 7 percent of GDP last year, according to Reuters.
Tunisian authorities are also combating extremist Islamists who have gained a foothold in the country since the end of the police state under Ben Ali. The military is battling militants in the remote mountains along the Algeria border, and the government has linked the Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia – which the U.S. designated a terrorist group Friday – to a rare suicide bombing in the resort town of Sousse and to two political assassinations in the past year that shook the nation. To make matters more difficult, the technocratic interim government will not have the electoral mandate to tackle Tunisia’s most pressing issues. That means that while Tunisia’s secular opposition will welcome the demise of Ennahdha rule, the country may have to hold out for new elections, still months down the line, before it sees the reforms it badly needs.
The Dish 