The Tunisia ModelNovember/December 2019 69o¡ non-Islamist parties and activists
united in their opposition to the Islamist
group and little else.
Essebsi therefore took Islamists and
secularists alike by surprise when, shortly
after the election, he formed a coalition
with Ennahda. Essebsi, it soon emerged,
had been meeting for secret talks with
the Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi,
a remarkable development, given that
Essebsi had served as foreign minister
under the regime that had imprisoned
and tortured Ghannouchi. Their public
rapprochement sent a powerful message
to the public: the days o° bitter political
rivalries were in the past. A democratic
Tunisia could accommodate leaders o¡ all
stripes—Islamists and secularists, conser-
vatives and liberals.
Violent extremism, however, still
punctuated the country’s progress.
Terrorist attacks in early 2015, ̄rst at the
National Bardo Museum, in downtown
Tunis, and later at a beach resort inThe Quartet also helped the Constituent
Assembly resolve sticking points in the
new constitution, and in January 2014, the
deputies passed the new text in a near-
unanimous vote.
It would not be the last time that
coalition building allowed postrevolution-
ary Tunisia to weather a moment o¡
uncertainty. In late 2014, the country
held its ̄rst-ever free parliamentary and
presidential elections. The contest was
fair, but turnout—48 percent o¡ eligible
voters for the legislative and 45 percent
for the presidential election—was low for
such a monumental event, suggesting
that Tunisia was not the vibrant democ-
racy many had hoped for. And the results
seemed to set Tunisia up for further
con¥ict. Essebsi, the presidential candi-
date with the most votes, was a staunch
secularist and longtime member o¡ the
pre-revolutionary regime who had run on
an explicitly anti-Ennahda platform. His
party, Nidaa Tounes, was a loose coalitionGood news: a merchant in Tunis, May 2017DANIELLE VILLASANA
/ REDUX