The "democratic transition" moves forward haltingly

In a speech on March 30th, Béji Caid Essebsi said that Tunisia was "on the right track" and that he would not let the "historic revolution" fail. His actions since he took over as interim prime minister in February have generally been well received. However, it was not clear why, at the end of March, he sacked his interior minister, Farhat Rajhi, who had been widely praised for disbanding the notorious security apparatus of the ousted president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. Mr Rajhi was replaced by Habib Essid, who was once a junior interior minister under Mr Ben Ali. Some critics said that Mr Rajhi had been too zealous in reforming the Ministry of the Interior for the liking of Mr Essebsi and the interim president, Foued Mebazaa, both of whom support the removal of senior officials from the former ruling party, the Rassemblement constitutionnel démocratique (RCD), but want to avoid a witch hunt throughout the administration.

Another development that has raised questions has been the suspension of the work of the official commission set up in February to investigate corruption and embezzlement on the grounds that its work was "unconstitutional". By the time it was suspended, the commission had received 4,239 requests to probe corruption and had studied 519 of them, notably ones linked to the former president, his wife and family, and senior officials close to them. The commission has been ordered to hand over all its documents to the state prosecutor. It is not clear why, although some critics believe that its investigations were getting too close to existing members of the interim government. If so, this does not bode well for the future of the democratic movement.

Against this background of uncertainty, work has continued, albeit unsteadily, to implement the "road map to democracy". The commission (the Commission for the Achievement of the Objectives of the Revolution and the Democratic Transition) charged with preparing an electoral code for the July 24th election for a national constituent assembly, which will, in turn, approve a new constitution and prepare for further elections for parliament and the presidency, has made little progress. Its first meeting in mid-Marchended in disarray after complaints that its 71 members, who had been nominated by the interim government from political parties, civil society groups and experts in constitutional law, were not representative of those who had led the revolution and, moreover, included 40 people who had signed a petition some months ago urging Mr Ben Ali to stand for re-election in 2014. On March 26th the commission's head, Iyadh Ben Achour, said that the membership would be enlarged to 130 to include "Islamists, leftists, nationalists and Arabists" and that anyone who had signed the petition calling for Mr Ben Ali to be re-elected would be excluded. Mr Ben Achour had to suspend a subsequent raucous meeting on March 30th, when most of the commission's members wanted to denounce the appointment of Mr Essid as interior minister. Mr Ben Achour threatened to resign, accusing members of trying to sabotage the commission's work. Given the potential for continuing disputes among the commission's members, there must be a strong likelihood that the planned election date of July 24th will have to be rescheduled.