The Tunisia ModelNovember/December 2019 71country’s Ärst-ever local elections, held in
May 2018, were a step in the right
direction. Not only did they introduce
one o the most progressive gender-parity
requirements o any electoral law globally,
with 47 percent o local council seats
going to women; they also opened the
gates to young candidates, with 37 percent
o the seats going to those under 35.BUILDING THE SHIP AS IT SAILS
Tunisians are quick to point out that their
country doesn’t provide a model that can
be cut and pasted onto other national
contexts. But their experience still holds
important lessons about how to support
democracy. For outsiders, the main
takeaway is to keep one’s distance at Ärst.
Tunisia succeeded thanks not to the
presence o a pro-democracy agenda led
by other countries but to the absence o
such an eort. The transition began with
a grassroots call for change, which
foreign donors and international partners
later stepped in to support. This made it
hard for the government to discredit the
protests as a foreign-driven, neocolonial-
ist project. Wherever possible, the United
States and Europe should allow home-
grown change to occur without prema-
ture interference. Once democratic
transitions take root, outside govern-
ments should be quick to oer Änancial
support and training. In places where
change seems unlikely to emerge on its
own, foreign donors should make use o
conditional aid and provide larger pots
o funds to countries that meet certain
political and economic indicators. The
Millennium Challenge Corporation and
the European Union’s “more for more”
principle, both o which reward coun-
tries for political and economic reform,
are good examples o this approach.country with the largest number o
migrants arriving in Italy by sea. To slow
this trend and improve Tunisians’
economic prospects, the government will
need to take some unpopular measures,
such as cutting wages in the public sector.
This will require confronting the powerful
labor unions—in particular, the ³¡¡—
which at times have eectively shut down
the country with massive strikes. But inac-
tion will only turn o international lenders
and exacerbate the brain drain, mass
emigration, and extremist recruitment.
Reforming sclerotic government insti-
tutions is another priority. The judi-
ciary remains largely unreformed. Many
judges are holdovers from the Ben Ali
era, and the byzantine legal code is not
always in line with the constitution. Most
egregious, the country currently has no
constitutional court, largely because
lawmakers cannot agree on whom to
appoint as judges. The Ärst democratically
elected parliament, in oce from 2014
to October 2019, struggled mightily to
pass legislation and suered from severe
absenteeism, with around hal its mem-
bers missing in action on any given day.
The most important item on the
agenda is regaining the conÄdence o the
Tunisian public. As o early 2019, only 34
percent o Tunisians trusted the presi-
dent, and only 32 percent trusted their
parliament, according to a poll by the
International Republican Institute. When
it comes to voicing their concerns, many
o them, especially the young, prefer the
streets over the ballot box. Around 9,000
protests are held each year, the majority
o which originate in the same tradition-
ally marginalized regions where the
revolution started. This problem has no
easy solution, but devolving greater
powers to the local level would help. The