Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa 9781626374027

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Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

Studies on North Africa Robert A. Mortimer, Series Editor

Party Politics and the for in

Prospects

Democracy

North Africa Lise Storm

b o u l d e r l o n d o n

Published in the United States of America in 2014 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 2014 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Storm, Lise, author. Party politics and the prospects for democracy in North Africa / Lise Storm. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-58826-958-4 (alk. paper) 1. Democratization—Africa, North. 2. Political parties—Africa, North. 3. Africa, North—Politics and government. 4. Africa, North—Politics and government—21st century. I. Title. DT205.S86 2013 321.80961—dc23 2013018369 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5 4 3 2 1

For the wonderful Amélie

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

1

Introduction

1

2

Political Parties and Democracy

15

3

Party Politics in Morocco Before the Arab Spring

37

4

Prospects for Democracy in Morocco

63

5

Party Politics in Tunisia Before the Jasmine Revolution

85

6

Prospects for Democracy in Tunisia

111

7

Party Politics in Algeria Before the Arab Spring

133

8

Prospects for Democracy in Algeria

157

9

Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

177

Appendixes A: Legislative Elections in Morocco, 1963–2011 B: Legislative and Presidential Elections in Tunisia, 1956–2012 C: Legislative and Presidential Elections in Algeria, 1962–2012 D: List of Acronyms

191 197 201 207

References Index About the Book

215 235 244

vii

Acknowledgments

This book is dedicated to my wonderful Amélie, who from a tiny age joyfully traveled with me when I was conducting research for this book and happily zipped back and forth between Exeter and Paris as I was writing it. While I dedicate the book to Amélie, others, of course, also played a major role in helping me write it, whether as academic sparring partners or as friends. Although it breaks with convention, I give thanks by geographic location. In England, I thank the Leverhulme Trust for funding my initial research; Debra Myhill, Robert Van De Noort, Neill Armstrong, and Robert Gleave for pushing me to write, while also affording me the time; and Jonathan Githens-Mazer for academic advice and friendship. I also wish to thank Emma Murphy and Michael Willis for always being supportive. Thank you to my many students, particularly Abdelouahed el-Motaouakal, Billie Jeanne Brownlee, Tereza Jermanova, and Anaïd Flesken. Thanks go to the beautiful Teresa Cole and Isabel Davies, to Ollie Coysh and Jimi Stewart, to the girls at the Plant, to Piers Markham for helping my writing flow more easily, to James Whetlor for sharpening my concluding chapter, and last, but not least, to Valère Speranza for great company, delicious food, and funky music, which made the final editing process quite a pleasure. In Paris, I owe a big thank you to the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales at the SciencesPo, which hosted me while I was writing. In particular, I owe thanks to Fariba Abdelkhah, Béatrice Hibou, Laurence Louër, Stefan Seiler, and Muriel Posson. Thanks also to Pierre Vermeren at the Sorbonne for inviting me to Paris in the first place. A big thank you goes to the wonderful Grég de la Nouvelle Mairie, Kevin Ayers, Nico ix

x

Acknowledgments

Dumas, Talor Browne, Emperor Norton, Fady Moubareck, Théo Pourriat, Bertrand Grébaut, Eric Techer, Olivier Roblin, Benjamin Fourty, Corentin Bucillat, Yasmine Manjra, and Patrick and Dao for making my stay not only memorable, but also so enjoyable. Elsewhere, I thank my brother, Simon, and my mother, Kirsten, as well as my dear friend Jens Kristian Villadsen. Thanks also to Robert Mortimer, Elisabetta Linton, and Lynne Rienner for believing in my project and in me. Thank you to Souhail Karam, Aida Alami, The Moor Next Door, Hocine Lamriben, Nadia Lamlili, Ahmed Benchemsi, and Christophe Guguen for keeping me up to speed and on my toes. Finally, I wish to thank many of my colleagues abroad: Scott Mainwaring, Lisa Anderson, Ellen Lust, John Entelis, Youcef Bouandel, Isabelle Werenfels, Muriel Asseburg, Oliver Schlumberger, Guido Steinberg, Guadalupe Martinez Fuentes, Raquel Ojeda, Rikke Haughbolle Hastrup, Francesco Cavatorta, Peter Burnell, and Thomas Carothers for providing valuable input early on. I am grateful to the late Peter Mair, my mentor while at the European University Institute, and a source of great inspiration while I was a student of his in Leiden many years ago. —Lise Storm

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

1 Introduction

This is a book about the Arab world: the Maghreb, to be precise. It is about dynamics of domestic politics and the prospects for democracy in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia—three countries bound together by history and geographic location, yet with very different political experiences. This is also a book about the Arab Spring, of course. How can one talk about politics and democracy in the present day and age, particularly with reference to the Arab world, without discussing the events of the Arab Spring? One of the three cases at the center of my analysis, Tunisia, was the country in which the Arab Spring erupted in late 2010, before it subsequently spread across the region. Although this book is largely about the Arab Spring, it is important to underline that it was not written because of it. As I shall seek to make clear in the pages that follow, the book is one result of my desire to understand how politics is conducted at the national level in the Maghreb. More specifically, I wanted to understand how the political elite bargains amongst itself, and which parameters frame this process of bargaining, which could potentially lead to democracy.

The Arab Spring The term democracy had rarely been used very optimistically in a Middle Eastern context prior to the Arab Spring. Then, suddenly, as the protests spread from Tunisia to Egypt, Morocco, Libya, and farther to the east, people across the globe found themselves querying whether we were watching yet another “spring,” that is, a spring in the sense of the “protests of 1968” or the popular momentum that brought down a number of authoritarian 1

2

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

regimes in Eastern and Southern Europe in the mid-1970s and the late 1980s and subsequently introduced democracy in a number of these states. Were we about to witness a democratic Middle East, an Arab world ruled by popularly elected governments, with freedom of expression, assembly, and association protected and respected? The expectations were extremely high, whether in the Arab world or abroad. Taking into account the authoritarian character of the incumbent regimes, the rather loosely coordinated nature of the Arab Spring protests, and the lack of explicit commitment from many of the more established political parties early on in the process, the optimism attached to these events as a force for long-term, significant political change was, in hindsight, perhaps a little naïve. The protests in Tunisia were the most effective, largely because they were not anticipated and also because they were difficult to quell due to their intensity and web-based origins. Few, if any, whether inside Tunisia or abroad, had expected Mohamed Bouazizi’s desperate protest to spark largescale popular demonstrations that would sweep the country and eventually oust a president who had been firmly in power since the late 1980s. There is no doubt that had these protests been anticipated, they would have been quelled much earlier on, and with much more vigor, using the usual mechanisms of regime control: patronage, most likely in the form of higher salaries, bonuses, and food subsidies, as well as the promise of the creation of more jobs for the rapidly growing number of unemployed, particularly among the youth. Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his vast entourage did not realize the significance of the protests until it was too late, however. With the demonstrations being largely coordinated via the Internet (primarily through Facebook and Twitter), and spread by word of mouth, they were all the more difficult to stop. There were no headquarters that could be ransacked and closed down, and there was no leader who could be silenced: the headquarters were everywhere in cyberspace, and anyone willing to initiate or spread the word of an upcoming demonstration was effectively a leader. The authorities simply had no way to stop the wave of protests once it had begun, namely, because it did not take the form of a movement and there were no structures to be attacked. The protesters were a force due to their sheer size, their shared objective, and their commitment to turn out in force on a daily basis. As we all know, the Tunisian protesters succeeded in toppling the incumbent regime, as Ben Ali left the country and took up exile in Saudi Arabia when the demonstrations spun out of control and it had become clear that nothing but his exit would appease the angry masses. In the excitement over the breakdown of Ben Ali’s regime and the subsequent competitive legislative elections—the first free and fair of their kind in the postindependence era—most Tunisians and international observers forgot to query the nature and democratic potential of the new regime, that is, apart from questioning the compatibility of Islam and democracy. In other words, while plenty of

Introduction

3

time was afforded the discussion of whether the new cabinet, headed and dominated by the Islamist Ennahda, was truly committed to a secular, democratic Tunisia, few people inquired about the status of the fundamental democratic building blocks, most notably the character of the political parties, the nature of the party system, and the structure of the political system. Had these truly changed in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution? And to what extent had they changed? Moreover, what did these developments—or lack of developments—indicate about the prospects for democracy in Tunisia? These fundamental questions, which have hardly surfaced in the discussion of the implications of the Jasmine Revolution, are consequently the core focus of this book. The questions pertaining to the character of the political parties, the nature of the party system, and the structure of the political system are not only relevant in the Tunisian setting, but also with regard to the situations in Algeria and Morocco, although their experiences of the Arab Spring differ significantly from each other as well as from the Tunisian experience. In Algeria, it is quite evident that nothing much happened, regardless of whether compared to the events in Tunisia or Morocco. Although demonstrations did take place in various Algerian towns and cities, most notably in the Bab elOued and Badjarrah neighborhoods of Algiers as well as the Kabylia region, these were much more modest in size, and they did not have the same clear goal as the demonstrations did in neighboring Tunisia. In fact, in Algeria, the Arab Spring protests appeared to be nothing more than an escalation of the social protests taking place on a daily basis across the country prior to 2010, the objectives of the protesters remaining local rather than national in orientation, and varying significantly from one city to another.1 Consequently, due to their lack of a clear, shared objective, the Algerian protesters did not constitute much of a threat to the incumbent regime. Just as in Algeria, the protests in Morocco were much more muted visà-vis those in Tunisia, not only in terms of size, but also with regard to the fierceness of the demands put forward, as well as their degree of coherence. That said, in Morocco the protests were arguably more coherent than in Algeria as there was an actual protest movement, the Mouvement du 20 Février. Yet, while the different components of the movement came together in a call for political reforms, no agreement had been reached on the way forward for the country (i.e., on the contents of such reforms), a reality that significantly weakened the cause of the demonstrators. Moreover, because the Moroccan protests were coordinated, they were relatively easy for the regime to neutralize as there were clear lines of command to target, not only via repressive measures, but also by means of patronage. With regard to the demands issued, the Moroccan experience was somewhere in the middle between the Algerian and Tunisian ones. Although the emphasis in Morocco was on more than social reforms, there

4

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

were no strong pleas for regime change in the sense of overthrowing the head of state and instituting a parliamentary democracy in which the king would continue to rule, but not govern. While there was some criticism of the monarchy, very few people seriously questioned Mohammed VI’s ability to govern, or his stabilizing effect on the country. Rather, the focus was on the country’s politicians, who were accused of being inefficient and corrupt, more interested in amassing personal wealth than in representing the will of the people. In other words, those at the center of the storm were the secondary elite of politicians—those whose removal would not fundamentally alter the nature of how politics was conducted in the country. There are, of course, a number of reasons why the Arab Spring protests in Algeria and Morocco were much more low key, and therefore also had much less of a political impact, than in Tunisia. One of them is undoubtedly the fact that they were anticipated by the incumbent regimes, who realized that the Tunisian protests were bound to spill over as Ben Ali’s regime became seriously threatened and eventually fell. After all, the grievances of the Tunisian protesters were shared by the citizenry of Algeria and Morocco, which also had authoritarian regimes in place, and whose governments had been largely unsuccessful in their response to the economic crisis faced by all three countries (and most other countries across the globe).2 Given the reality that the Arab Spring protests in Algeria and Morocco were anticipated, it was much easier for the incumbent regimes to respond to them by, for example, prohibiting demonstrations, limiting access to the Internet, and introducing food and fuel subsidies. In addition to the reality that they were anticipated, the Algerian and Moroccan protests were shaped by further factors—factors that also formed the Tunisian experience. The argument put forward in this book is that the incumbent regime’s ability to successfully respond to the protests, the political strength of the demonstrators, and, therefore, the prospects for democracy were all largely determined by three factors: the structure of the political system, the nature of the party system, and the character of the political parties. The presence (or absence) of opposition parties, the willingness of these to act as vehicles for democracy, and the extent to which the parties and other key actors, such as the army, were co-opted by the incumbent regime affected not only how the Arab Spring unfolded in each country but also the potential for democratic transition and consolidation.

The Elitist View of Political Change Few people, whether academics, analysts, or simply members of the general population in the Arab world, had anticipated the advent of the Arab Spring. This was not because no civil society existed in the region, but

5

Introduction

rather because several of the Arab countries, together with many other nondemocratic regimes, appeared to be going nowhere. They were, in Carothers’s (2002: 9) words “neither dictatorial nor clearly headed toward democracy. They have entered a political gray zone.” After years of tentative political openings, which did not bring the Arab countries much closer to democracy, most people had simply become resigned to the fact that the “middle ground between full-fledged democracy and outright dictatorship is actually the most common political condition today of countries in the developing world and the postcommunist world. It is not an exceptional category to be defined only in terms of its not being one thing or the other; it is a state of normality for many societies, for better or worse” (Carothers 2002: 18). People had, in short, lost their illusions. Transitology

From an academic perspective, with the rise and subsequent supremacy of the so-called transitology school, there had long been agreement that although civil society is important, significant political change—regime change—tends to be negotiated at the elite level, usually via one or more pacts, and in rare cases, as the result of a revolution (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986; Przeworski 1992; Schmitter 2010: 23). Although pacts are not strictly speaking necessary for a transition to democracy to take place, they are usually an important part of nonviolent regime change (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986: 37; Przeworski 1992: 108). According to the transitologists, it is possible to divide the regime and the opposition into two groups (see Figure 1.1), which can each be divided into two subgroups: the hard-liners, comprising those actors within both the regime and the opposition who are unwilling to compromise (the former group is usually referred to as hard-liners, while the hard-liners within the opposition are usually classified as radicals); and the soft-liners, a category comprising those willing to negotiate, regardless of whether within the regime (referred to as reformers) or within the opposition (the so-called moderates) (Przeworski 1992: 117). Hence, for negotiated regime change via pacts to be possible, two sets of key actors must be present: within the regime, there must be reformers,

Figure 1.1 Hard-Liners and Soft-Liners

Hard-Liners Soft-Liners

Regime

Opposition

Hard-liners Reformers

Radicals Moderates

Sources: O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986); Przeworski (1992).

6

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

who are willing to negotiate with the political opposition, and likewise, within the opposition, there must be moderates willing to negotiate with the reformers. Without both reformers and moderates on the ground, pacts are not possible; there have to be people willing to bargain on both sides of the fence (Przeworski 1992: 111). In the words of Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe Schmitter (1986: 19), “we assert that there is no transition whose beginning is not the consequence—direct or indirect—of important divisions within the authoritarian regime itself, principally along the fluctuating cleavage between hard-liners and soft-liners.” At the time of the Arab Spring, it appeared that there were plenty of hard-liners within the regimes, while reformers were more difficult to identify in both the Tunisian and Algerian cases. As the analysis in this book demonstrates, given the extremely repressive nature of these two regimes, and the long reign of both Ben Ali and Bouteflika, most members of the political elite had made the decision to support the regime in exchange for patronage. Not all key figures could be classified as hard-liners, though. Some opposition did exist, not only in the more pluralistic Morocco, but also in Algeria and Tunisia. However, the complex system of control, repression, and patronage used in both the latter cases had resulted in a situation where there was no room for moderate opposition figures. Disregarding the legal “opposition,” which had in effect been co-opted by the regimes, the genuine opposition was not only clandestine, but also radical, arguing for the overthrow of the regimes of Ben Ali and Bouteflika, rather than their reform.3 Consequently, when the Arab Spring erupted in Tunisia in late 2010, it was impossible to identify both reformers and moderates, the two groups necessary for pact-making. Hence, the most viable scenarios for the future of the Maghrebi states appeared to be either the persistence of status quo or, indeed, the revolutionary path. Given the frequency of revolutions and the age of these regimes, most observers were in agreement that status quo was the most likely scenario. That was until that fateful day in December 2010, when Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire and sowed the seeds of the popular uprisings that came to be known as the Arab Spring as they spread across the region. Political Parties and Party Systems

Although a wealth of knowledge exists on the topic of political parties and party systems in Europe and North America, in particular, but also in other parts of the world, scholars have spent precious little time studying the political parties and party systems of the Arab world. Given that there is virtually unanimous agreement that political parties are indispensable for democracy, and that “no democratization process can afford to do without parties” (Schmitter 2010: 23), this reality seems a great shame. 4 Further-

Introduction

7

more, taking into account the preoccupation with the state of democracy in the Arab world since the beginning of the so-called third wave of democratization following the end of the Cold War, this seems not only a great shame, but also rather puzzling. Scholars have been concerned with the lack of democracy in the Arab world, as well as with the very slow advances in a democratic direction, yet, one of the cornerstones of democracy, and supposedly also the democratization process, has been left largely untouched. Consequently, when it comes to the Arab world, what we are left with is a great number of studies on the status of democracy, which vary in size and level of theoretical abstraction, but which all share the trait that they rarely focus on political parties, and when they do, the approach is far from consistent from one case to another, making comparison difficult. To mention a few of the monographs on the topic of the state of democracy in the Arab world, there is Pratt’s Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Arab World (2006), which focuses on civil society, and there is Sadiki’s (2011) survey of elections entitled Rethinking Arab Democratization: Elections Without Democracy—both analyses that touch upon political parties, but not in any greater detail. Then there are the edited collections from various authors, such as Arab Elites: Negotiating the Politics of Change (Perthes 2004), which—as the title suggests—focuses on constellations of power and elite change; Debating Arab Authoritarianism: Dynamics and Durability in Nondemocratic Regimes, a collection of essays on mechanisms of regime survival (Schlumberger 2007); Getting to Pluralism: Political Actors in the Arab World, a study of key political actors from the perspective of democracy promoters (Ottaway 2009); and Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Regimes and Resistance, which charters the main actors and the mechanisms of regime survival across a number of cases (Pripstein Posusney and Penner Angrist 2005).5 What all of these analyses share, apart from an emphasis on the issue of democracy in the Arab world, is a minimal focus on political parties. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule, most notably Michele Penner Angrist’s study of Party Building in the Modern Middle East (2007), and Lawson and Ibrahim’s edited collection Political Parties and Democracy: The Arab World (2010), both of which have parties firmly at the forefront. Penner Angrist’s (2007) is a beautifully written, theoretically complex, comparative study of how party system characteristics shaped the regime-formation process in the immediate postindependence period in the Arab world, with the analysis centering on the case of Turkey in particular, while the other cases—Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt—serve as points of comparison, albeit to varying degrees. With its emphasis on the formation of the postindependence regimes, the study effectively limits its focus to the 1950s and 1960s, hence offering no analy-

8

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

sis of the contemporary situation in these countries, which differs considerably from fifty or sixty years ago, particularly in light of the Arab Spring. In contrast to the study by Penner Angrist (2007), the analyses presented in Lawson and Ibrahim (2010) and Catusse and Karam (2010) focus very much on the present day, that is, the state of affairs in the region just prior to the Arab Spring. Beginning with Lawson and Ibrahim (2010), there is no denying that this is a very impressive feat, as the study, together with the other four volumes, covers the party systems of no less than forty-five countries across five continents. However, because the editors emphasized local empirical knowledge when selecting the contributors, the result is a study that provides data on eight Middle Eastern and North African countries (Egypt, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Israel, and Turkey), with a chapter dedicated to a detailed analysis of each of the cases, as well as more comparative introductory and concluding chapters. And although the authors address the same set of questions, most notably the relationship between parties and democracy in their particular country, the theoretical framework varies from case to case, as does the methodological approach and the degree of referencing, which in some chapters is rather sparse. Hence, Lawson and Ibrahim’s study (2010) comes across as more of a survey than a coherent academic analysis of party systems and democracy in the Arab world. With regard to Catusse and Karam (2010), the study is much more coherent, focusing on a more manageable six cases (Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, and Yemen). The book, although an edited volume, is theoretically coherent and emphasizes not only the value of a theory-based approach rooted in the classical party studies literature, but also the importance of contributing to this body of work by adding to our theoretical understanding of Arab parties and, therefore, political parties in general. Finally, it is worth mentioning the edited volume from Lust-Okar and Zerhouni (2008), which takes on a similar format to that of Lawson and Ibrahim (2010). The contributors to Lust-Okar and Zerhouni (2008) each provide a comprehensive case study of avenues of political participation in a given Middle Eastern or North African country (the cases covered being Iran, Jordan, Egypt, Gaza, Bahrain, Morocco, and Tunisia), and while the volume comes across as more theoretically grounded than Lawson and Ibrahim’s (2010), coherence suffers as the approach taken in each chapter varies considerably, with some emphasizing trade unions, and others civic organizations or political parties. There is no doubt that it is difficult to establish a shared theoretical framework and maintain a consistent methodological approach in an edited volume that includes in excess of five contributors, as is the case with both Lust-Okar and Zerhouni (2008) and Lawson and Ibrahim (2010). Consequently, it would be nice to see the publication of monographs that tackle the issues of parties, party systems, and

Introduction

9

democracy in a number of cases, albeit not necessarily in a very overt comparative analysis, but certainly in a detailed and systematic manner. The Maghreb

With regard to the Maghreb, and referring only to material published in English, three studies in particular stand out, namely, Willis (2002a, 2002b) on the Maghrebi parties, Penner Angrist (1999), and Hostrup Haugbølle and Cavatorta (2011) on the Tunisian parties. Willis’s (2002a, 2002b) study of the Maghrebi parties is particularly pertinent in that it provides a comparative analysis of the parties and party systems of Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia.6 Sadly, Willis (2002a, 2002b) adheres to the line of thinking that contends that the political parties and party systems of the Maghreb are profoundly different from those found elsewhere. Hence, his analysis is rich with local detail, but does not assist the reader who wishes to make comparison to cases outside of the region as references to material on party theory are largely missing. In other words, Willis’s study constitutes an excellent introduction to the parties and party systems of the Maghreb from a so-called area studies perspective.7 Even less theoretical than Willis (2002a, 2002b) are Penner Angrist (1999) and Hostrup Haugbølle and Cavatorta (2011). The former provides an elegantly written account of Tunisian party politics following Ben Ali’s coup in 1987, detailing how the opposition forces have failed to act as representatives of the people, primarily due to the character of the country’s political system, but also as a consequence of the power struggles within the party leaderships. Sticking with the opposition theme, Hostrup Haugbølle and Cavatorta (2011) demonstrate, some ten years later, how disaccord and weakness remain the order of the day, although attempts were made to unify the opposition prior to the Jasmine Revolution, most notably in the Rencontre Démocratique and the 18 Octobre Collectif. Taking the above observations into consideration, one of the chief objectives of this book is to contribute to filling the void in our knowledge of political parties and party systems in the Arab world. And, given how little we know, the hope is that scholars specializing in political parties and party systems will benefit as much as the area studies specialists. This latter point is quite important if one is to understand the style of the book and how it is structured. By seeking to appeal to both party specialists and those who work on the Arab world, quite a significant amount of political theory stemming from the academic literature on political parties and party system institutionalization has been applied, yet, apart from in Chapter 2, which sets out the theoretical framework, keen efforts have been made to ensure that the study does not come across as too rigid and formulaic—something that would send most area studies specialists running in the other direction. In

10

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

short, I have attempted a middle way, and I hope I have been successful enough that both groups have not been alienated in the process, but rather brought together.

Case Selection: Why the Maghreb? So, why the Maghreb? Why Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, rather than the combination of three other cases? Why not all of North Africa, which is in turmoil at the moment? The answer to this question is quite simple: I have a background in the study of North African politics, the countries, their people, and the way the political elites operate fascinates me. I have written extensively about Morocco in particular, but that has not stopped my curiosity—there is always more to learn. What has especially intrigued me over the years, and what has undoubtedly captivated other Maghreb specialists before me, is how the countries differ, despite relatively similar colonial experiences and close geographic proximity.8 Questions began popping into my head, such as how come Algeria and Tunisia were so heavily authoritarian, while Morocco was more relaxed, albeit still undemocratic? Why was the party system in Morocco so large, while the Algerian and Tunisian party systems were both effectively one-party systems until at least the early 1990s? How come a democratization process, although slow, appeared to be under way in Morocco, but not in Algeria and Tunisia? With nobody able to provide a satisfactory answer to these questions—and others like them—my research began. The study is not, in other words, structured around a random selection of cases with a view to gain the best possible understanding of how the constellation of party systems, as well as the character of the relevant political parties, impact on the prospects for democracy. Rather, the objective is to gain the best possible understanding of how the constellation of party systems, as well as the character of the relevant political parties, impact on the prospects for democracy in the Maghreb.9 In short, I wish to know more about both, because both areas are severely understudied. As already mentioned above, we know hardly anything about political parties and party systems in the Arab world, and preciously little about the Maghrebi parties and party systems, even if one includes the large body of work that exists on the region in the French language, as well as recent work in Spanish, such as, for example, the collection edited by Parejo (2010).10 Moreover, we also know very little about how political parties impact on the democratization process in general, as discussed in greater detail in Chapter 2. Going back to the choice of region, it was not only my background in North African studies that was decisive in my choice of cases. Another factor was, of course, the issue of comparison. From the beginning I was quite

Introduction

11

adamant that I wanted to make use of both the “most similar systems design” and “most dissimilar systems design” methods, as I wanted to compare both similarities and differences.11 In short, how come two presidential systems, Algeria and Tunisia, were so similar and yet so different? How come, at times, Algeria and Morocco, a presidential regime and a monarchy, compared better than Algeria and Tunisia? More specifically, I wanted to explore how presidentialism shaped the party systems of Algeria and Tunisia, and how monarchical rule shaped the Moroccan party system, as the party systems were so very different in size.12 I also wanted to examine whether a presidential system meant that the prospects for democracy were bleaker, which they appeared to be in both Algeria and Tunisia at the time, and why that, indeed, was the case. Given the comparatively much larger size of the Moroccan party system prior to the Arab Spring, as well as the slow growth of the Algerian party system (and to some extent the Tunisian one too), a further topic I wanted to scrutinize was if the size of the party system seemed to play a role in the prospects for democracy. Could it be that Algeria and Tunisia were slowly beginning to democratize, and that the tentative expansion of their party systems was a sign of this?

Outline of the Book In the sections above, I have raised rather a lot of questions, and there are even more appearing throughout the book. I have done my utmost to answer them all, to the best of my abilities, but as I always tell my students, political science is qualified guesswork. And while I may be a specialist in North African politics, sometimes I get it slightly wrong, or simply completely wrong, as when a student asked me in October 2010, “Why is Tunisia not included as one of the cases in the course on debating democracy and authoritarianism in North Africa?” a question to which I, a firm believer in the ideas of the transitology school, replied, “Because it is so boring. Nothing ever happens. It is solidly authoritarian, has been so for decades, and the prospects of it changing any time soon are rather minute.” I am delighted that my assessment of the situation, which I shared with many other political scientists, was utterly inaccurate. This book is structured by country, rather than by theme, which I could have done. However, the idea is to provide the reader with the necessary theoretical framework in Chapter 2, before moving on to three sets of countryspecific chapters, beginning with two on Morocco, then two on Tunisia, and, finally, two on Algeria. By structuring the book like this, the reader gets the opportunity to become fully immersed in the experiences of one particular country, before moving on to another, which I found of higher importance

12

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

than a more comparative perspective. The objective here is for the reader to gain a comprehensive understanding of the parties, the party systems, and the political environment shaping these over the longue durée, for it is my opinion that without a detailed knowledge of the past, it is impossible to make a correct assessment of the present and valid estimates regarding the future.13 How is one to assess the prospects for democracy in the Maghrebi countries in the wake of the Arab Spring, without having gained a comprehensive understanding of the development of their party systems, the major parties within these, and how the political elites operate? Factors such as, for example, the circumstances during which the political parties were formed, the longevity of the key dynamics of the political system, and the pace with which change has occurred in the past, are all important. Without a profound knowledge of such issues, one can only provide a superficial analysis, and that is, of course, not the aim. That said, should anyone wish to read the book according to themes— that is, in a more comparative manner—Chapters 3, 5, and 7 focus on the evolution of the party systems and the character of the so-called relevant political parties prior to the Arab Spring. Chapters 4, 6, and 8 center on the post–Arab Spring setting, and the extent of the political changes that occurred as a consequence. Chapter 9 provides the comparative conclusion and perspectives, discussing the prospects for democracy in the Maghreb in the wake of the Arab Spring. Naturally, the analysis centers on the issue of how the prospects for democracy are tied to change within the parties and the party systems over the years, and the extent to which the political environment has shaped the room available for maneuvering. Among the main issues debated are whether new, relevant political parties appear to be emerging; whether the old parties seem to be transforming into genuine parties; and if it is possible to foster durable democracy in the event that new parties do not see the light of day, and the old parties remain personalistic outfits concerned with amassing patronage rather than carrying out the representative and procedural functions traditionally associated with political parties (as discussed in Chapter 2).

Notes 1. Some protesters demanded gas and water connections, others wanted increased investment in the Kabylia region, and then there were those calling for the creation of more jobs and a lowering of food prices, those demanding the right to criticize the state for the atrocities committed during the civil war, and so on. 2. Please note that the profound economic challenges faced by the Maghrebi regimes had already appeared before the global economic crisis took hold. The problems (such as graduate unemployment and rapidly rising food prices) were, in other words, very deep-rooted, but were further exacerbated by the global economic crisis.

Introduction

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3. In short, if one defines the legal “opposition” as moderates within the opposition, then the reformers were missing within the regime. If one, on the other hand, defines the legal “opposition” as reformers within the regime, given their co-opted status, then no moderates were left among the opposition. In other words, no matter how one approaches the situation, there is no arguing with the fact that the necessary groups for negotiating pacts were simply not present. 4. For a longer discussion of parties and democracy, please refer to Chapter 2. 5. See also Carothers (2006) Confronting the Weakest Link: Aiding Political Parties in New Democracies, which was written with democracy promoters in mind, or Elbadawi and Makdisi’s (2010) Democracy in the Arab World: Explaining the Deficit, which analyzes the topic from an oil/developmental angle. Not much space is afforded political parties in the latter, while Carothers (2006) views parties as crucial actors when seeking to promote democracy. 6. It is worth noting that Michael Willis has recently published a beautifully written comparative study on politics and power in the Maghreb. However, although the analysis addresses political actors, themes, and issues, the approach taken is a narrative historical one. See Willis (2012). 7. Isabelle Werenfels (2007) has written an excellent study of Algerian politics, and while political parties are treated in the analysis, the emphasis is on elite structures in general. 8. Hence the exclusion of Egypt. 9. Libya prohibited political parties during most of the reign of Muammar Qaddafi. 10. Among the French works are Camau and Geisser (2003), Chouikha (2004), the special double issue of the Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée 111–112 (2006), Mohsen-Finan and Zeghal (2006), and Chouikha and Gobe (2009). 11. For more on system design, refer to Landman (2008), for example. 12. For more on the merits and perils of presidentialism versus parliamentarism, see the famous article by Linz (1994). See also Cheibub (2006). 13. Please bear in mind that this does not, by any means, imply that I believe in path dependency.

2 Political Parties and Democracy

The prospects for transition to democracy in any given country, as well as the likelihood that democracy is going to survive, are both closely linked to the existence of political parties and the level of institutionalization of the party system in which they operate. Because the three cases at the center of this analysis fall outside of the purview of most studies of political parties and party systems, as they are all nondemocratic regimes, the discussion of how to define political parties and their functions, how to classify parties, and how to measure the level of institutionalization of the party system necessarily includes thoughts on how this can best be done in this thus far virtually uncharted territory. Among the issues discussed is the question of how minimalist a definition of political parties to apply, given that if the chosen definition is too narrow, the Maghrebi parties may not meet the criteria, but if it is set too broadly, then entities for which it’s a real stretch will be classified as political parties. A further topic explored is the issue of the changing functions of political parties in the advanced industrial democracies, as it is possible that the functions of parties in the Maghreb could be changing too, maybe not along the same lines, as the roles of parties in nondemocratic regimes tend to differ, but perhaps for the same reasons. On the topic of how to classify political parties, what are the merits of the historically contingent models traditionally applied in the analyses of political parties in Western, Eastern, and Central Europe? Are there alternative approaches that might provide a more accurate picture, both within and outside Europe? Finally, what is party system institutionalization; does an institutionalized party system necessarily indicate good prospects for democracy; and to what extent is it necessary to amend the measures of party system institutionalization in order to reach meaningful conclusions on the three Maghrebi cases? 15

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Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

Defining Political Parties According to Giovanni Sartori (1976: 63), “any political group identified by an official label that presents at elections, and is capable of placing through elections (free or non-free), candidates for public office,” constitutes a political party. This definition, which has received status as one of the so-called classics, will be adhered to in this study, partly because of its concise nature, but also due to other features such as the fact that it includes the single party, and its insistence on the importance of success. Sartori’s definition is undoubtedly of the minimal kind, that is, including only properties that have direct implications for whether a given entity can or cannot be defined as a party, leaving out characteristics that are not definitional but seek to distinguish one type of party from another. In other words, this particular definition stipulates the minimum conditions that must necessarily be met by an entity wishing to be identified as a political party.1 Of course there are other minimal alternatives to Sartori’s definition, among them those by Riggs (1968; 1971: 580), Lasswell and Kaplan (1950: 169–171), Janda (1970: 83), Schumpeter (1942: 283), and Schattschneider (1942: 35–37), which all served as sources of inspiration for Sartori when he developed his framework for analysis of parties and party systems.2 In comparison to these other five minimal definitions, Sartori’s has some distinct advantages, particularly with regard to applying it to cases in the Arab world, which are generally viewed as far from democratic. In other words, one of the main advantages of Sartori’s definition vis-à-vis those mentioned above is the explicit mentioning of “non-free” elections as also qualifying; Riggs (1971: 580) and Lasswell and Kaplan (1950: 169–171) only state the need for groups/organizations to nominate candidates for election, while Janda (1970: 83), Schumpeter (1942: 283), and Schattschneider (1942: 35– 37) neglect to highlight the importance of elections in their definitions. A further advantage of Sartori’s definition is that it clearly includes the single party.3 In contrast, Riggs (1968: 50–51) is very ambiguous with regard to the single party, which he apparently does include, albeit not clearly, while Lasswell and Kaplan (1950: 169–171) seek to exclude the single party. Like the inclusion of “non-free” elections, the insistence that the single party should not be excluded from the definition of a political party is particularly relevant in a Middle Eastern context, where single parties have been the order of the day in a number of countries. Finally, the definition of a political party formulated by Sartori sets itself apart from the other five in that it insists on the importance of success, that is, parties actually managing to have one or more of their candidates elected. In this way, Sartori (1976: 63) excludes parties that he describes as “nothing but labels”—parties that contest elections but are unable to gain even a single seat. With regard to the study of political parties in the Arab

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world, this criterion is often highly relevant, as a number of countries in the region suffer from extreme party system fragmentation, with many of the so-called parties being unable to win even a single seat in parliament. Hence, according to Sartori’s definition, these entities would not qualify as political parties, while they would according to the definitions of Riggs (1968), Lasswell and Kaplan (1950), Schumpeter (1942), Janda (1970), and Schattschneider (1942).

The Functions of Political Parties Just as there is a wide range of opinions on what actually constitutes a political party, there are several different views on what the functions of political parties are. That said, there has long been considerable agreement that democracy cannot work without political parties. Scholars from Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in the 1830s,4 to Schattschneider (1942), Schumpeter (1942), Sartori (1976), Lipset (2000), and Mair (2005), have all highlighted the crucial importance parties play in making democracy work, not just for politicians, but also for the electorate. In short, the vast majority of scholars agree that without a number of the functions served by political parties, democracy simply cannot survive, and at least some of these functions cannot be taken over by other bodies. Given the reality that political parties serve a wide variety of purposes, albeit not all of equal importance, most scholars tend to divide these into clusters, thereby gaining a better overview of the roles parties play. The analysis carried out here follows the framework set out by Mair (2002), which groups the functions of parties into two categories depending on whether their main attribute can be characterized as representative or procedural.5 In the representative category, one finds the role of political parties as vehicles of citizen integration and mobilization; parties as the articulators and aggregators of interests; and parties as formulators of public policy (Mair 2002: 5–6). The key procedural functions of political parties highlighted by Mair (2002: 6) are the recruitment of political leaders, the nomination of persons to public offices, and the organization of parliament and government. Mair’s review of party functions is “necessarily brief and overgeneralised,” as he himself admits (2002: 7), but it nevertheless serves as a clear and concise overview, which is perfectly adequate for the analysis carried out here. The discussion of the functions of parties in the Maghreb is, after all, only a small part of the examination of the relationships between parties, party systems, and the prospects for democracy in the region. That said, there are a number of caveats that must be taken into consideration, largely because the framework is being applied to the Arab world. This

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Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

does not, by any means, imply that the Arab world or, indeed, the Maghreb is viewed here as fundamentally different to the rest of the world, and therefore that concepts that were developed on the basis of theories and research carried out for the most part in Western, Eastern, and Central Europe as well as North America cannot be applied to this region.6 Rather, what I am seeking to highlight is that there is already an ongoing debate on whether these functions classically associated with political parties are still necessary, or even possible, in the current day and age and in fully mobilized democracies. In other words, although not highlighted in the debate, some of the potential limitations raised by Mair (2002: 5–6) and others regarding the representative functions of parties in the so-called “advanced industrial democracies” (such as Germany, Sweden, and France) are to a large extent also valid in the Maghreb and the wider Arab world. Party Dealignment and the Roles of Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies

In recent years, it has become readily apparent that parties in the advanced industrial democracies have come to play a different and, some say, much less important role than they did in the past, largely due to party dealignment caused by the citizenry’s losing faith in the parties’ ability and willingness to act as their representatives. This reality, however, does by no means imply that parties no longer perform key functions in the political system, but rather that they are now having to share many of their traditional (representative) tasks with other organizations, such as, for example, citizen interest groups. To give just a few examples, the formulation of public policy is to a great extent the job of experts and nonpolitical bodies, and the articulation of interests is now also largely handled by the media, as well as by other nonparty associations and movements (Dalton and Wattenberg 2000; Daalder 2002; Mair 2002). Furthermore, citizen integration and mobilization are now also widely seen as historically contingent, with these functions viewed as roles performed by mass parties in the past. In other words, in fully mobilized democracies, neither of these functions is necessary or maybe even possible (Pizzorno 1981; Mair 2002). The response by the political parties to the emergence of alternative vehicles for citizen representation has been one of change, with many parties diversifying away from their traditional representational role. While the view that political parties in advanced industrial democracies are undergoing significant change is a rather undisputed one, strong disagreement exists over whether this change signifies adaptation or decline (Dalton and Wattenberg 2000; Diamond and Gunther 2001; Gunther, Montero, and Linz 2002; Luther and Müller-Rommel 2002). As a consequence of this debate, there has been a shift in the focus of scholars preoccupied with party poli-

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tics, and since the late 1980s, a vast body of work on the issue of party change has emerged as a result. What is important to note, however, is that despite this altered research direction, only a minority of academics has departed from the fundamental assumption that there can be no democracy without political parties.7 In other words, while it is clear that political parties are changing, and may (or may not) be playing a declining role in the advanced industrial democracies, democracy would be unlikely to survive in anything but name in these countries if parties were to disappear.8 The Roles of Parties in Nondemocratic Regimes

Given the reluctance to expand the study of political parties to nondemocratic regimes, the academic literature on the topic is sparse, particularly when it comes to formulating theories that can be utilized in cross-regional analyses. That said, the consensual view—both among scholars of party politics and so-called area studies specialists—is that the role of parties in nondemocratic regimes is to keep these regimes in power (Sartori 1976; Ware 1996; van Biezen 2003; Schedler 2006a, 2006b). Musing on the topic of the merits of the no-party state (regardless of whether party-less or antiparty) versus those of the single-party state, Sartori (1976: 40) argued that a state with a politicized society cannot survive without parties, as modern societies need channeling and, ipso facto, political parties, as these are the channeling agents mediating between society and the state (Sartori 1976: 41–42). From the perspective of authoritarian leaders, creating a one-party state is therefore preferable to a no-party state as the former provides a vehicle for the effective mobilization of the politicized society, thereby keeping it under control and thus the regime in power. Although Sartori’s words that a politicized society cannot survive without parties remain true, it is blatantly obvious that the parameters have changed. In the post–Cold War era where “democracy” and “democratization” have become some of the key buzzwords, the pervasively politicized societies are no longer satisfied with just one channeling agent. Hence, authoritarian leaders have come to find themselves in a situation where they need to provide several channeling agents in order to create an illusion of pluralism and democracy. In the Arab world, this has resulted in the emergence of regimes that allow for political pluralism and competitive elections, but where electoral contests and the presence of a whole range of parties is simply a façade. Real power remains in the hands of the authoritarian leader, just as it did prior to the Cold War. Moreover, in many cases the authoritarian leader has also remained the same, although the Arab Spring has succeeded in forcing leadership changes in a number of Arab states, including Tunisia. Whether one chooses to refer to this type of regime as “competitive authoritarian,” “electoral authoritarian,” or “liberalized autocracies” is of

20

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

minor importance—these concepts all essentially describe nondemocratic regimes that not only allow, but actively encourage, toothless political pluralism and electoral contestation because these have come to be seen as regime survival mechanisms.9 Consequently, I have chosen to bail out of the conceptual debate and simply refer to these regimes as nondemocratic, thereby also escaping the pitfall that is the “hybrid” regime, which is the term Brumberg (2002, 2005), Schedler (2006a, 2006b), and Levitsky and Way (2010) all use as the overarching regime category.10 The term hybrid regime gives the illusion that these states have in place regimes that can be located somewhere on the spectrum between nondemocratic and democratic regimes, whereas, in reality, democratic measures such as competitive elections have been twisted to ensure the survival of leaderships that remain squarely authoritarian. Why Elections? Party Competition in Nondemocratic Regimes

In those authoritarian regimes that wish to give the impression that they are, in fact, democratic, elections play an important role. Just as in democratic regimes, elections in authoritarian states serve two main purposes: to bestow legitimacy upon the regime and to ensure representation. Where the two regime types differ with regard to the holding of elections are on the topics of (1) the motives behind holding competitive elections in the first place and (2) the level of contestation permitted. The core objective of regime survival. Unlike in democratic regimes,

where elections are held in order to allow the citizenry to freely select their representatives, in authoritarian regimes elections are held with a view to guarantee regime survival (Dahl 1971, 1989; Schedler 2006a, 2006b). In other words, whereas elections in democratic regimes emphasize the interests of the people, elections in authoritarian regimes seek to safeguard those in power by ensuring that they cannot be accused (by the citizenry and/or the international community) of not providing consultation, contestation, and pluralism. Elections have, in short, become an “instrument of authoritarian rule” rather than an instrument of democracy (Schedler 2006b: 3). The level of contestation. In situations where elections have become an

instrument of authoritarian rule, the following principles generally apply: “elections are broadly inclusive (they are held under universal suffrage) as well as minimally pluralistic (opposition parties are allowed to run), minimally competitive (opposition parties, while denied victory, are allowed to win votes and seats), and minimally open (opposition parties are not subject to massive repression, although they may experience repressive treatment in selective and intermittent ways)” (Schedler 2006b: 3). In other words,

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apart from the inclusiveness aspect of democratic elections, they deliver only the bare minimum. But the bare minimum is, indeed, provided. The opposition has at least a theoretical chance of access to power. That said, these elections are hardly democratic. Alternation in power— as emphasized by Przeworski (2000: 27)—is not a genuine possibility given the level of state manipulation of the elections. How this is done varies from state to state, and often from one election to another, but it tends to be an “undercover activity” as Schedler (2006b: 8) puts it. The “menu of manipulation” is extensive and includes measures such as the manipulation of electoral rules, the curbing of access to state media and campaign finance, the redistribution of votes and seats, as well as formal and informal suffrage restrictions (Schedler 2002; 2006b: 8). Opposition parties in nondemocratic elections. Given that elections in

authoritarian regimes have as their core objective to ensure the survival of the incumbent regime via a democratic method, but in an unfree setting, how come opposition parties decide to partake in what is essentially a regime-legitimizing exercise? The answer to this rather pertinent question is, sadly, missing. While there is plenty of research on the issue, there is no conclusive evidence that points in the direction of a standard response. What is evident from the research, however, is that opposition parties very rarely decide to boycott elections, although they often dispute their outcome. In short, according to Lindberg (2006: 158), “opposition parties do play along with the rules of the game but, to some extent, only when it suits their interests,” thereby indicating instrumental rather than intrinsic support for democratic procedures (Beaulieu and Hyde 2009; Lindberg 2006: 159).11 What appears to be the case, in other words, is that the theoretical opportunity of electoral victory, and the often very real likelihood of access to power via representation in the legislature (regardless of how minute), is enough of an incentive for the opposition to agree to participate in these elections. Only once it becomes clear that (1) the elections were heavily manipulated and/or (2) the opposition parties suffered a defeat do they protest, that is, by rejecting the outcome of the elections. Hence, even in authoritarian regimes, elections remain important, not only in terms of the results of the process, but also with regard to the extent to which the menu of manipulation is applied. Political Parties and Their Functions in Democratic Transitions and Consolidations

Notwithstanding the fact that there are still numerous authoritarian regimes in place across the globe, the academic attention being paid to reform dynamics in these countries has been sparse, indeed. Unlike the 1980s and

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Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

1990s, when work on the issue of democratic transitions was positively booming due to the political upheaval in Latin America as well as Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe, prior to the Arab Spring very little has been written on current democratization efforts in Africa, the Arab world, and Asia, particularly when it comes to theoretical contributions or comparative studies. While there are several reasons why scholars have shied away from studying democratization processes in these regions, one of the main fears is undoubtedly that of conceptual stretching as it appears that many scholars have come to accept Thomas Carothers’s (2002) claim that we have arrived at the end of the transition paradigm. Put briefly, Carothers contends that although a great many countries are still located within the nondemocratic category, the vast majority of these are not in transition to anything (i.e., are at a standstill). Of those that are in transition, very few find themselves en route to democracy but rather to another form of nondemocratic rule: they are moving in a so-called gray zone from one subcategory to another within the nondemocratic category. That not much research is being conducted on the subject of transition politics in contemporary nondemocratic regimes is a great pity as we seem to be wasting a golden opportunity to contribute to our knowledge not only of democratic transitions, but also of the role played by political parties in these, as this is an area that has so far been underestimated, and therefore also undertheorized (van Biezen 2003: 3–5). Most of the classic works on democratic transitions largely ignore the role of political parties, emphasizing either elite behavior (individual leaders) or pressures levied by the general population and/or social movements.12 In theory, of course, it could be that political parties are not that crucial to the transition process, although that appears a highly unlikely scenario taking into account the fact that political parties are ascribed a key role in democratic consolidation, as well as in preventing the breakdown of democratic regimes (Linz 1978; Linz and Stepan 1996). Consequently, although it is not the purpose of this particular study to generate a substantial theoretical contribution to our understanding of the role of political parties in the transition process (given the rather small sample size), it is nonetheless hoped that some of the conclusions reached here will be applicable not only outside the Maghreb, but also beyond the Arab world, thereby adding something to our knowledge of how parties assist in aiding or preventing democratic transitions. In fact, this latter point is worth highlighting, as with the current elite focus, which centers on individual leaders; we do not know much about why and how parties contribute positively to the transition process, and equally little is known about why and how parties actively work against it. In order to provide a sound analysis of these issues, however, a better appreciation of the functions of political parties in nondemocratic regimes is essential. Hence, this is where I will begin my efforts.

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Classifying Political Parties The study of political parties is a vast field and, as stated previously, includes subareas such as party organization, the study of new parties, party adaptation and change, and political parties and policy. Because the emphasis of this particular study is on the relationships between political parties, party systems, and the prospects for democracy in the Maghreb, I am approaching the Maghrebi parties from a largely neo-institutionalist perspective, focusing on the effects of existing structures. The approach, at the outset, is very similar to that of Ingrid van Biezen (2003: 15–16), who adopts a perspective where “the basic assumption is that party strategies are shaped by both the institutional context and the historical setting in which they operate.” I also agree with van Biezen (2003: 16) and Katz and Mair (1993) that party organization is primarily shaped by the environment in which the party began to operate, just like a changing environment is the main factor behind party change, but that does not necessarily imply that internal agents do not play a key role, and one should accordingly be careful not to overlook the role played by these.13 Classic works on political parties, such as Duverger (1954), Kirchheimer (1966), and Katz and Mair (1995), all link the environment to the classification of political parties, thereby not only coming up with historically contingent classificatory schemes, but also, when viewed together, a depiction of party change in Western Europe over the past many decades. Because of their historical ties, however, I have chosen to apply a model (that of Wolinetz 2002) that departs from the traditional format in that it is not historically contingent, thereby making it more widely applicable. That said, it is nevertheless still necessary to take a brief look at some of these classic works as they form the basis for Wolinetz’s (2002) tentative classificatory scheme. In other words, without some knowledge of mass and cadre parties, catch-all and cartel parties, internally and externally created parties, party development in Western Europe, and so on, it would simply not be possible to fully comprehend Wolinetz’s (2002) model, nor could one achieve a comprehensive and accurate assessment of the Maghrebi parties and party systems. These concepts and models lie at the core of our understanding of political parties, and although they may be somewhat outdated in a Western setting, and may also not necessarily be applied fully to nondemocratic regimes, they still provide us with valuable information, which is why they are still widely referenced even despite their shortcomings. Party Organization: Cadre, Mass, Catch-All, or Cartel?

Max Weber famously treated the issue of party organization in a lecture in 1918, focusing in particular on the relationship between the extension of

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Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

democratic rights and the emergence of the mass party.14 Yet, although Weber’s work on the mass party predates that of Maurice Duverger (1954), students of party politics tend to emphasize the scholarship of the latter. Duverger’s Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State has become a seminal work on party organization, shaping the debate on the issue ever since its publication in 1954. The most fundamental of Duverger’s contributions to the study of political parties is his analysis of party organization, which delineates what have become key concepts, such as the mass party and the cadre party, while simultaneously providing a comprehensive overview of the evolution of the Western European party system until 1950. Duverger’s cadre and mass parties. In the introduction to Political Parties, Duverger (1954: xxxv) emphasizes the importance of distinguishing not only between different types of parties, as defined according to their organization, but also between their mode of creation as “it is the whole life of the party which bears the mark of its origin.” More specifically, Duverger (1954: xxx) highlights the difference between parties that are externally created and those that are internally created, the former being established by preexisting parliamentary elites and the latter as a consequence of the efforts of extraparliamentary actors. While there is general agreement that it is inaccurate to classify parties in Western Europe on the basis of Duverger’s (1954) model, its core concepts—albeit detached from their theoretical origins—are still in frequent use today as they continue to provide us with valuable insights into intraparty dynamics.15 In the Maghreb, where politics is still largely a domain of the elite, where the party system is relatively young, and where new parties (albeit of varying significance) continue to emerge, several of the concepts so central to Duverger’s (1954) analysis remain highly relevant. As shall become evident from the analysis in subsequent chapters, in many cases, political parties in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia behave along the lines stipulated by Duverger (1954). In other words, given the elitist nature of politics, most parties tend to be internally created and, consequently, mostly active at election time. Of course, a small minority of parties are externally created with a slightly more popular orientation, as well as a somewhat stronger ideological commitment, albeit not to the extent that this was the case when mass parties first emerged in Western Europe (Duverger 1954: xxx–xxxvii; Daalder 2001: 45).16 Going into slightly more detail, while not all Maghrebi parties conform to this particular pattern, the vast majority of them did until very recently strongly resemble Duverger’s (1954: 18–20) caucus-based parties, alternatively labeled cadre parties.17 Because of the absence of free and fair, reasonably competitive elections, parties in the region were essentially vehi-

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cles for elite promotion. They had accordingly weak collective organization, and to all intents and purposes consisted of a small group of influential figures (albeit not necessarily notables), who for a long time did not seek to expand their structure. As in Duverger’s description of the caucusbased party, most Maghrebi parties found their strength in the quality of their members, rather than in the size of their membership. With the tentative political openings in Morocco in the mid-1990s, in Algeria during the beginning of the twenty-first century, and in all three cases with the eruption of the Arab Spring, the political parties have come to find themselves in a situation where they are suddenly much more reliant on the electorate, and therefore the size of their membership, than in the past. In order to survive in this markedly more competitive situation, there is no doubt that the region’s parties are going to have to undergo some organizational change. The question is, however, whether they are likely to follow the path trodden by their counterparts in Western Europe, developing into mass parties, then catch-all parties, and lastly cartel parties? Or whether the Maghrebi parties will follow a different path, perhaps skipping a stage or two?18 Kirchheimer and the catch-all party. The classification of parties as either cadre parties or mass parties was challenged by Otto Kirchheimer (1966), who argued that in light of further societal developments in Western Europe, a new type of party, the catch-all party, had been born. Moreover, Kirchheimer (1966: 190) postulated that this new type of party was rapidly beginning to dominate the scene as the elitist cadre parties were now few and far between, and the old mass parties were beginning to transform themselves into catch-all parties in an effort to conquer the electoral scene more fully in the highly competitive post–World War II environment. Compared to the mass party, the catch-all party, due to its overriding impetus to maximize votes, was characterized by a much more immediate concern (i.e., the next elections) and was also much less ideologically charged out of fear of deterring any potential voters (Kirchheimer 1966: 190). While the number of catch-all parties in Western Europe rapidly expanded at the cost of cadre and mass parties following World War II, many did not succeed in becoming successful catch-all parties, while others made the decision not to jump on the bandwagon at all. Among those that were unsuccessful were the smaller parties, particularly those that had a regional basis or were built on a strong, but limited, ideological foundation (Kirchheimer 1966: 195). Although virtually only major parties could become successful catch-all parties, most of the parties that showed no inclination to transform themselves into catch-all parties were large. What they had in common was the reality that they were major parties in small democracies, which meant that they had a strong and sizeable membership base, and it was accordingly not only easier, but also less risky, for these parties to con-

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Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

tinue to operate as they already did (Kirchheimer 1966: 188–195). Catch-all parties were, in other words, a strictly competitive phenomenon. Katz and Mair’s cartel party. The high level of competition characterizing

the electoral arena in Western Europe at the time when Kirchheimer wrote his catch-all thesis has long since been replaced by a situation dominated by widespread dealignment. As discussed above, over the past few decades, the electorate has abandoned political parties en masse, dissatisfied with the performance of the political parties and the politicians themselves. It is not only the political environment that has changed, however, but also our approach to understanding how political parties differ. Following the scholarship of Richard Katz and Peter Mair (1995, 2009), many students of political parties now classify these not only on the basis of their relationship with society, as traditionally done, but also on the basis of their relationship with the state. In fact, with the growing political dealignment, the role of the relationship between parties and the state has become the chief dynamic shaping parties. The increased importance of state-party relations has led to a situation where the state and political parties are now interpenetrating, at least in Western Europe. Katz and Mair (1995: 6, 16–17) argue that this reality, coupled with a rise in interparty collusion, has resulted in the emergence of a new type of party, the so-called cartel party, which they view as a natural progression of the waning catch-all party. In other words, responding to the changed environment, the catch-all party, which depended significantly on its membership base for both financing and campaign work, began to widen its focus, vying for the attention of a variety of financial sources as well as independent channels of communication. Over the years, this reassessment of priorities and, consequently, party transformation, has resulted in the development of the catch-all party into the cartel party, a party characterized by a heavy reliance on state benefits and privileges, and with campaigns that are virtually exclusively capital (rather than labor) intensive (Katz and Mair 1995: 20). Hence, the cartel party does not necessarily compete to maximize its share of the vote, but to maximize its share of patronage, which in many cases is best achieved by limiting competition and instead collaborating, thereby forming a cartel with a view to monopolizing state resources (Katz and Mair 1995: 16–17, 19–20).19 Policy-Seeking, Vote-Seeking, or Office-Seeking? Reexamining the Classification of Parties

In recent years, some scholars have made a case for revising this traditional framework for classifying political parties, putting forward the argument that a new approach to the study of party behavior and organization is needed in

Political Parties and Democracy

27

order to fully capture the response by parties to the challenges they have come to face over the past three decades. One of the more successful proponents of the development of an alternative approach is Steven Wolinetz (2002), who contends not only that the traditional framework fails to reflect recent challenges, but also that it does not, strictly speaking, constitute a classificatory scheme. Rather, the traditional framework is a model, which delineates how political parties—predominantly in Western Europe—have changed over the years (Wolinetz 2002: 149).20 From the perspective of Maghrebi politics in particular, and Middle East politics in general, Wolinetz’s tentative classificatory scheme, which emphasizes party behavior and preferences, further appeals because of its stated objective of coming up with a model that enables cross-national comparisons, not only within Western Europe, but also including cases from more far flung corners of the world, and in very different settings. Up until now, such studies have been a rarity,21 largely because many scholars are wary of conceptual stretching (i.e., applying an established concept to fringe cases, thereby potentially altering its meaning).22 Not surprisingly, the view taken in this study of the Maghreb is that conceptual stretching is not a necessary consequence of applying established concepts to borderline cases, although it may, indeed, happen. However, without challenging and testing our views of existing concepts such as political parties and democracy, and without risking conceptual stretching by applying these to hitherto understudied regions, how are we going to continue to revise our opinions and broaden our knowledge not only of the concepts, but also of other regions? With these issues in mind, running the risk of conceptual stretching by exporting established concepts seems entirely worthwhile. Writing on political parties in Southern and East-Central Europe, van Biezen (2003: 7–8) similarly argues that given the fact that the Western European models are the only constructs available, it would be foolish to ignore these, despite the reality that when they have been applied to the new European democracies, scholars have learned relatively little.23 In an effort to avoid what she terms “transformation bias” (i.e., conceptual stretching), van Biezen (2003: 8) suggests that we use the existing models developed in the Western European context as a heuristic tool, leaving room for the incorporation of country- or region-specific variables. This seems a perfectly agreeable solution to the problem. Wolinetz’s tentative classificatory scheme. It is important to highlight

that Wolinetz’s classificatory scheme garners strength not only from being portable, but also because of its widely encompassing nature due to its strong affinities to the works of Kaare Strøm (1990a, 1990b) on coalition theory, and Robert Harmel and Kenneth Janda (1994) on party change. Like Strøm (1990a, 1990b) and Harmel and Janda (1994), Wolinetz (2002) dis-

28

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

tinguishes between three types of parties—the policy-seeking party, the vote-seeking party, and the office-seeking party—but whereas the former put emphasis on theory building, Wolinetz is first and foremost concerned with developing a model that can be applied widely in empirical research by being not only easily operationalized, but also by being flexible in the sense that it makes room for different variants of the three core categories. Hence, one key objective is to facilitate comparative studies. According to Wolinetz (2002: 150, 153–154), the policy-seeking party is characterized by being issue-oriented and, as the name suggests, puts realizing its policies before any of its other objectives. It is important to note that policy-seeking parties do not necessarily have well-defined programs or, indeed, well-articulated ideologies. Moreover, also included in the category are protest parties and single-issue parties. Essentially, as long as a party prioritizes policy objectives over vote maximizing and gaining office, that party can be classified as policy-seeking.24 Wolinetz (2002: 161) lists the mass party and Poguntke’s (1993) “new politics party” as examples of policy-seeking parties. The vote-seeking party distinguishes itself from its policy-seeking and office-seeking counterparts by emphasizing vote maximizing, and it readily manipulates policies and positions from one election to another if such moves are likely to result in an increased share of the vote—just like Kirchheimer’s (1966) catch-all party (Wolinetz 2002: 151, 159–161). Due to its primary objective being vote maximizing, the vote-seeking party usually only maintains the minimum level of organization required to get candidates recruited, selected, and elected, but that is not to say that the party is not concerned with winning office. On the contrary, the vote-seeking party seeks to win office at most, if not all, levels, but with minimal effort, and it will utilize new electoral techniques in order to get ahead, something which is less frequently done by the policy-seeking and office-seeking parties (Wolinetz 2002: 151–152, 154–155).25 Finally, the office-seeking party is a party that emphasizes getting into office, even if that means attracting fewer votes in order to put at ease potential coalition partners.26 As is the case with the vote-seeking party, the office-seeking party does not prioritize policy commitments (in fact, even less so), as these may scare away prospective collaborators, thereby diminishing the party’s chances of gaining access to patronage (Wolinetz 2002: 152–155). Taking these characteristics into consideration, it is hardly surprising to find that Wolinetz (2002: 159–161) describes the cartel party as one variant of an office-seeking party. Because political parties tend to display characteristics of at least two of the three types of parties, they can be difficult to classify. However, it is important to remember that Wolinetz does not view the three dimensions as mutually exclusive or as entirely independent of each other. Rather, like

29

Political Parties and Democracy

Strøm (1990b: 572), he envisions a model where the three orientations are points of a triangle (see Figure 2.1), and parties can then be plotted according to the relative priority they assign to each dimension (Wolinetz 2002: 150). For the reason that it is necessary to observe repetitive behavior and/or attitudes in order to establish whether the main orientation of a party is policy-seeking, vote-seeking, or office-seeking, it is usually quite difficult to classify new political parties. It is much less of a feat to classify a party that has institutionalized practices and modes of operation, as the priorities of a well-established party should be clearly visible (Wolinetz 2002: 153, 155). Maghrebi perspectives. From a Maghrebi perspective, in comparison to many of its competitors, Wolinetz’s (2002) tentative classificatory scheme has the advantage that it allows for different patterns of transformation. The usual underlying assumption that parties evolve along a set path, and what we therefore need to be preoccupied with is the speed of change, has been replaced by a much more flexible and encompassing framework. Wolinetz (2002) is, of course, not alone in allowing for different patterns of transformation; Strøm (1990b) is another example.27 However, whereas Strøm (1990b: 566) excludes parties in authoritarian and single-party states,

Figure 2.1 Wolinetz’s Tentative Classificatory Scheme Vote-seeking

Catch-all party

New politics party

Patronage party Cartel party

Mass party

Policy-seeking Source: Adapted from Wolinetz (2002: 161).

Office-seeking

30

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

Wolinetz (2002: 163) actively encourages the application of his classificatory scheme to new cases outside of Europe and North America—that is, to parties “in a much wider range of systems and contexts” in different parts of the world. That said, it is not entirely clear whether Wolinetz (2002: 163) would condone the use of his framework in a Maghrebi setting given his stated emphasis on democracy. Because Wolinetz (2002) gives no explicit definition of how he views democracy, it is difficult to gauge whether his minimal conditions differ dramatically from those of Strøm (1990b), who is much more specific. Strøm (1990b: 566) essentially argues for the presence of a minimum of political stability, a condition the Maghrebi cases all fulfilled until the Arab Spring, along with key importance being assigned to electoral contestation and officeholding. The status of these two latter factors in the Maghreb has varied not only within each case over time, but also among the three cases. There is no doubt that elections have grown increasingly more competitive and also more free and fair, at least in the Algerian and Moroccan cases, while officeholding has always been a key priority of the political parties and their leaders given the well-established patronage systems. In other words, even though the three Maghrebi cases do not satisfy the requirements of most definitions of democracy, save for the socalled “electoralist” definitions, they did actually all meet Strøm’s (1990b) criteria for a period of about two decades around the time of the beginning of the twenty-first century, albeit not necessarily for the right reasons.

Party System Institutionalization and Democracy The prospects for democracy in the Maghreb in the wake of the Arab Spring are affected not only by the orientation of the political parties, but also by the environment in which they operate, most notably by the character of the political system, which in all three cases is an example of authoritarian rule, and by the nature of the party system, particularly its level of institutionalization. From the body of work on party system institutionalization appearing from the mid-1990s and onward, it is apparent that most scholars see a link between party system institutionalization and democracy, whether in the form of the breakdown of democracy or the survival of authoritarian rule (Booth and Robbins 2010; Dix 1992; Mainwaring and Scully 1995; Linz and Stepan 1996; Kuenzi and Lambright 2001). Analyses of party system institutionalization tend to fall into two groups: the studies with large sample sizes that primarily seek to contribute to our understanding of party system institutionalization in general, and those with small sample sizes, whose main objective is to add to our knowledge of the party systems of a very select group of countries.28 Given the

Political Parties and Democracy

31

relatively small sample size of this study, and the preoccupation with assessing the prospects for democracy in the contemporary Maghreb, the analysis carried out here clearly falls within the second group. The emphasis is, in other words, on understanding the extent to which the “patterned interactions in the competition among parties,” which is how Mainwaring and Scully (1995: 4) define a party system, have become entrenched. As a consequence of this focus, the analysis of the level of party system institutionalization reached in each country prior to the Arab Spring centers on a discussion of the regularity of party competition, the establishment of stable roots in society, and the legitimacy of the political system, as these three indicators29 of party system institutionalization all have an impact on the potential for the emergence of new political parties that could act as forces for democracy, and the prospects for the transformation of the existing sizeable parties into democratic vehicles.30 The Regularity of Party Competition

The first indicator, the regularity of party competition, provides valuable information about the extent to which new parties have entered the party system, old parties have exited the party system, the size of these parties, and the degree of volatility within a group of parties, such as those that have traditionally dominated electoral politics in a given country—all data that are relevant when assessing the potential for the emergence of new significant parties.31 In line with the scholarship of Mainwaring and Scully (1995: 6), Mainwaring (1999), Mainwaring and Torcal (2006), and Mainwaring and Zoco (2007), which has served as a template for many a study of party system institutionalization, the regularity of party competition is measured by the Pedersen index, which calculates net change in each party’s seat or vote share from election to election. 32 It should be noted here that the calculations are made on the basis of seat share as it gives a more accurate picture of a party’s strength within the political system. Moreover, only data from legislative elections have been used due to the fact that presidential elections were not competitive until very recently in both Algeria and Tunisia, and even then they were only nominally so as genuine alternatives were prevented from contesting, and the results were also heavily manipulated. Stable Roots in Society

For this same reason and, of course, due to the reality that Morocco is a monarchy, the measure of stable roots in society deviates somewhat from Mainwaring and Scully’s (1995: 9–14) approach, which examines the difference between presidential and legislative voting, the seat share held by

32

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

parties founded by 1950, and the average age of parties with a seat share in excess of 10 percent. The inclusion of presidential-legislative volatility would simply provide a very limited and inaccurate picture of the degree to which the political parties have managed to connect with the citizenry, and it has therefore been omitted from the analysis. It is also worth noting that the second indicator has been modified so that the cutoff year is 1970, rather than 1950, for the reason that competitive elections were introduced much later in the Maghrebi cases. This adjustment is similar to that made by Kuenzi and Lambright (2001) in their study of thirty African cases, most of which gained independence around the same time as Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. Finally, it is important to underline that the data on party age have been heavily supplemented with country-specific information on voter attachment and apathy in recent years, thereby providing a more robust reflection of the extent to which the political parties have managed to establish stable roots in society. System Legitimacy

The final indicator of party system institutionalization applied here has been referred to as “institutionalization” by Kuenzi and Lambright (2001), while Mainwaring and Scully (1995: 14) do not attach a specific label, simply stipulating that “citizens and organized interests must perceive that parties and elections are the means of determining who governs, and that the electoral process and parties are accorded legitimacy.” As I find Mainwaring and Scully’s lack of a label unhelpful, and Kuenzi and Lambright’s choice confusing as the other two indicators also measure institutionalization, I have decided to refer to the third indicator as “system legitimacy,” thereby emphasizing Mainwaring and Scully’s focus on legitimacy of not only the party system, but the entire political system. Unfortunately, I agree with Kuenzi and Lambright (2001: 447) that Mainwaring and Scully’s (1995: 14) operationalization of the system legitimacy indicator is, indeed, very weak. Hence, the measures used to determine system legitimacy are identical to those suggested by Kuenzi and Lambright (2001: 447, 464), namely, whether (1) any major party boycotted the election, (2) the losers accepted the results (i.e., took up their seats in the legislature), and (3) the elections were deemed free and fair by international observers. The first and second of these two measures provide useful information about the extent to which the political parties themselves afford legitimacy to the political system, while the third measure assesses one of the key aspects of the character of the political system, a factor that is highly important as it is perfectly possible for political parties to afford legitimacy to competitive nondemocratic regimes.

Political Parties and Democracy

33

Notes 1. Sartori (1976: 61) characterizes a minimal definition as “when all the properties or characteristics of an entity that are not indispensable for its identification are set forth as variable, hypothetical properties—not as definitional properties. This is the same as saying that whatever falls beyond a minimal characterization is left to verification—not declared true by definition.” 2. Riggs (1968; 1971: 580) defines a political party as “any organization which nominates candidates to an elected assembly”; while Lasswell and Kaplan (1950: 169–171) stipulate that “a party (political) is a group formulating comprehensive issues and submitting candidates in elections.” Janda (1970: 83) declares that parties are “organizations that pursue the goal of placing their avowed representatives in government positions”; while Schumpeter (1942: 283) defines a party as “ a group whose members propose to act in concert the competitive struggle for political power.” Finally, in the words of Schattschneider (1942: 35–37), “a political party is first of all an organized attempt to get power.” 3. For his discussion of the single party and the party-state system, see Sartori (1976: 39–55). Sartori (1976: 42–43) specifically poses the question of whether a single party should be called such, and goes on to state that “there is a sense in which it makes sense to speak of ‘one party,’” although he would prefer a more clear terminological distinction between the single party (the party without counterparts) and the party that is a part. 4. See Lively (1962) and McWilliams (1992). The first edition of volume one of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America was published in New York in 1835. Volume two followed five years later in 1840. 5. An alternative to Mair, but less suitable for an Arab world setting, is the oftcited Key (1964). While Key (1964) and Mair (2002) differ on how they divide the various functions of political parties into categories, and also on how they label these, the main functions they list are very similar. 6. The possibility of “exporting” concepts (and “conceptual stretching”) is briefly discussed later in this chapter. 7. Several scholars, particularly those adhering to the neocorporatist and neopluralist paradigms, argue that democracy would not be damaged by political parties’ playing a much diminished role in politics. In fact, some claim that democracy would benefit from such a development. It is worth noting that those belonging to the deliberative democracy school of thought share this view, albeit for different reasons. 8. Mair (2005: 24), for one, argues that without political parties, democracy would be so significantly weakened that the term democracy could no longer be meaningfully applied. 9. For more on liberalized autocracy, see Brumberg (2002, 2005). Levitsky and Way (2010) discuss competitive authoritarianism, while Schedler (2006a) deals with electoral authoritarianism. 10. Schlumberger (2007) also finds the term problematic. 11. Beaulieu and Hyde (2009) argue that the increased acceptance of election monitors is likely to lead to a rise in boycotts as opposition parties have shown a greater propensity to abstain from participating when monitors are present. See also Kelley (2011). 12. For top-down perspectives, see Linz (1990) and O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986). Examples of bottom-up perspectives are Collier (1999) and Rustow (1970).

34

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

With regard to the Arab world, there is generally an emphasis on elite behavior; see, among others, Lust-Okar (2005), Perthes (2004), and Schlumberger (2007). 13. As it happens, the analysis in this book reveals that internal agents of change are rather unimportant for the development of the parties in the Maghreb, if compared to the environment. 14. For an English version of the published paper, see Weber (1946). 15. For a critique of Duverger, see Panebianco (1988). 16. The birth of the mass party in Western Europe coincided with the extension of the suffrage. With politics no longer a domain reserved for the nobility, new parties with structures aimed at attracting the newly enfranchised masses emerged. In contrast to the caucus-based parties, these mass parties were based on branches, which had a centralized and firmly knit structure (Duverger 1954: 67). 17. Please note that Duverger (1954: 18–19) identifies several types of caucuses, including the direct and the indirect caucus. 18. For a discussion on how the Southern and East-Central European parties fitted this trajectory, see van Biezen (2003) and Smith (1993). 19. With regard to the relationship between the party leadership and party members, the cartel party affords its members more rights than the catch-all party did. Yet, at the same time, their position is often weakened vis-à-vis nonmembers, as both groups are invited to partake in activities and decisionmaking processes (Katz and Mair 1995: 21). 20. Van Biezen (2003: 7) echoes this view. 21. Janda (1980) is an exception. 22. For more on the debate on conceptual stretching, please refer to, among others, Collier and Levitsky (1997) and Sartori (1970). 23. A further advantage is that, as van Biezen (2003: 17) notes, applying these Western-centered models to cases in other regions enables us to potentially identify parallels. 24. See also Harmel and Janda (1994: 270–271) and Strøm (1990b: 568–569). 25. See also Harmel and Janda (1994: 269) and Strøm (1990b: 568). 26. Please also refer to Harmel and Janda (1994: 270) and Strøm (1990b: 568). 27. Harmel and Janda (1994) focus primarily on party change. 28. Examples of the former include Mainwaring and Scully (1995), Kuenzi and Lambright (2001), and Lindberg (2007). Stockton (2001) and Wallis (2003) are representatives of the latter. 29. Please note that this is a very subjective decision. Some studies include additional criteria, while others have limited the scope to only one. For examples of the wide variety of measures used, see Kuenzi and Lambright (2001), Lindberg (2007), Mainwaring and Scully (1995), Mainwaring (1999), Mainwaring and Torcal (2006), Mainwaring and Zoco (2007), Wallis (2003), and Stockton (2001). 30. Given the primary objective of acquiring a deep understanding of the level of party system institutionalization and how it impacts on the prospects for democracy in the region, the analysis deliberately avoids the use of scores for each indicator, as this would distract from the qualitative focus. For the same reason, no attempt is made to categorize and label the party systems. 31. It is important to note that the election data, regardless of their form, were originally released by the Algerian, Moroccan, and Tunisian governments. There is no doubt that the data will have been tampered with in some instances, but in many cases data manipulation is difficult to detect. Given the lack of alternative data, one is effectively left with a choice between not using the released data, or using the data while highlighting the reality that they are likely to be unreliable at times (if

Political Parties and Democracy

35

not often). This dilemma is not exclusive to those studying the Maghreb, but everyone working on elections in authoritarian regimes. Here, as in many other studies, the decision has been made to use the data, while adding this caveat about the quality of the data. 32. The Pedersen index is calculated as follows: Total Net Change (TNCt) for the party system = ∑ ΙΔpi,tΙ n

i=1

where pi,t represents the percentage of the vote, which was obtained by party i at election t. Hence, the change in the strength of i since the previous elections will be Δpi,t = pi,t – pi,t-1. Accordingly, volatility (Vt) = ½ x TNCt. See Pedersen (1983: 29– 66) for more details.

3 Party Politics in Morocco Before the Arab Spring

As stated previously, I take the view in this book that in order to accurately assess the prospects for democracy in the wake of the Arab Spring, it is necessary to take into account the longue durée. Without an understanding of the party landscape, not only in terms of size and scope, but also institutionalization, it is simply not possible to grasp the political dynamics we are currently witnessing. Hence, this chapter, in which I discuss party politics in Morocco prior to the Arab Spring, serves as the necessary building block for the analysis of the prospects for democracy following the events of 2011, which is the topic of Chapter 4. I begin the analysis by discussing party system institutionalization in terms of party competition, party rootedness, and legitimacy. Together, these three indicators give an idea of the extent to which the country’s parties, particularly the larger ones, have become entrenched, something that undoubtedly affects the potential for the emergence of new parties of a significant size. The discussion of party system institutionalization leads on to an analysis of the formation and evolution of the traditionally dominant parties, going into detail with the circumstances surrounding their formation, their orientation at their inception, and how the political environment has shaped their outlook over time. One of the main conclusions reached is that regardless of their origins, the larger political parties converged at the time of the legislative elections of 2007, having all adapted to the executive monarchy and its dynamics.1 Hence, the final part of the chapter is dedicated to an analysis of the workings of the executive monarchy, the implications for decisionmaking, and the function of political parties in Morocco shortly before the eruption of the Arab Spring. 37

38

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

Party System Institutionalization Party system institutionalization, as discussed in Chapter 2, is usually measured by one or more of the following indicators: (1) party competition in the form of electoral volatility, (2) party rootedness as measured in terms of party age, and (3) legitimacy—in this case whether the major parties have boycotted legislative elections, the losers accepted the results, and whether the elections were deemed to be free and fair.2 The following sections set out the state of affairs of the Moroccan party system in the period 1963–2007, utilizing the three traditional indicators, but also, as suggested by van Biezen (2003: 8), taking into account country-specific factors that, in at least one instance, change the interpretation of the level of party system institutionalization reached. Party Competition

Even when dividing national politics from independence until the legislative elections of 2007 into electoral periods, there is no denying that the Moroccan party system experienced rather elevated levels of electoral volatility, if compared to volatility levels in Western Europe (Daalder and Mair 1983; Drummond 2006; Mair 2008). As is evident from Table 3.1, electoral volatility ranged between 22.0 and 70.2 percent during the six electoral periods identified, and while the overall trend was a decline, this was not a steady process due to the sudden soar in volatility in the fifth electoral period. Table 3.1 also illustrates how the level of electoral volatility changed in conjunction with the rise and fall in the effective number of parties. However, contrary to what one would normally expect, electoral volatility declined while the effective number of parties increased, seeing the Moroccan party system changing over the years from a case of limited pluralism to extreme pluralism from 1993 onward.3 This peculiarity was largely caused by two factors, the first being the continuous rise in the number of parties represented in parliament, and the second the relatively small size of the parties exiting and entering parliament, thereby contributing only moderately to electoral volatility. In fact, it is worth mentioning that a significant proportion of the electoral volatility experienced during the years 1963– 2007 was caused by alterations to the balance of power between the six parties that have traditionally dominated Moroccan politics, namely, the Parti Istiqlal (PI), the Mouvement Populaire (MP), the Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires (USFP), the Rassemblement National des Indépendants (RNI), the Union Constitutionnelle (UC), and the Parti de la Justice et du Développement (PJD), whose combined seat share averaged 66 percent for the period. While their contribution to the volatility levels has, of course, varied with each electoral period, together these six parties have on average

39

Party Politics in Morocco Before the Arab Spring

Table 3.1 Party Competition, 1963–2007 Electoral Volatility (seats)

Election Year

Effective Number of Parties (seats)a

Party System Classification

— 1963–1977 (1) 1977–1984 (2)

— 70.2 63.3

1963 1977 1984

2.9 3.2 5.4

Limited pluralism

1984–1993 (3) 1993–1997 (4) 1997–2002 (5) 2002–2007 (6)

23.9 22.2 30.9 22.0

1993 1997 2002 2007

6.8 8.6 10.4 10.3

Extreme pluralismb

Electoral Period

Source: See Appendix A. Notes: a. The effective number of parties (ENP) is calculated using the Laakso-Taagepera index: n

ENP =1/ ∑ pi2 where n is the number of parties with at least one seat, and pi2 the square of each i=1

party’s proportion of all seats. See Laakso and Taagepera (1979) for more details. b. From the discussion later in this chapter, it will become clear why the system was not “atomized” in 2002 and 2007 despite the large number of effective parties. Sartori (1976: 126–127) defines an atomized party system as one in which there are so many parties (usually more than eight) that the addition of a new party, or the departure of an old party, makes no real difference to the pattern of competition.

accounted for 48 percent of electoral volatility, and that despite the fact that the emergence of these parties was staggered, the youngest entering the party system as recently as 1998.4 Hence, while all six of the so-called traditionally dominant parties have managed to survive in this very volatile system, none of them has been able to lean back and relax, as not a single one could rest assured that it would perform equally well from one election to another. Stable Roots in Society: The Question of Age

In addition to electoral volatility, party age is generally viewed as an indicator of party system institutionalization, with a large seat share held by socalled older parties and a relatively generous age of the parties with a significant seat share both pointing in the direction of an institutionalized party system (Kuenzi and Lambright 2001; Mainwaring and Scully 1995).5 If judging by these two indicators of the party rootedness element of party system institutionalization, it is evident that during the years 1963–2007 the Moroccan party system fared far from spectacularly, albeit not badly either. The seat share held by the parties formed before 1970—a year often used as a cutoff in countries that were once subject to colonial rule—was generally relatively modest, the median being 27.8, and hovering around 40 percent on average (see Table 3.2).6

40

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

Table 3.2 Seats Held by Parties Formed Before 1970 (in percentage) Party PI PDI MP UNFP FDIC MPDC

Formation

1963

1977

1984

1993

1997

2002

2007

1944 1946 1958 1959 1963 1965

28.3 — — 20.0 47.6 —

25.7 — 16.6 — — 1.1

11.6 — 15.6 — — —

19.4 1.4 14.9 — — —

9.8 0.3 12.3 — — 2.8

14.9 0.7 8.5 — — —

15.6 — 12.2 — — —

95.9

43.4

27.2

35.7

25.2

24.1

27.8

Combined seat share

Sources: See Appendix A and Figure 3.2.

With regard to the age of the parties winning a sizeable share of the seats (in this case, in excess of 10 percent), the figures look rather better. Not only did the number of parties managing to secure more than 10 percent of the seats up for renewal in the legislative elections increase from three in 1963 to five in 2007, the average age of these also rose from 7.6 years in 1963 to a very respectable 36.6 years in 2007 despite the relative youth of the country’s party system (see Table 3.3).7 To put these figures into perspective, it is worth casting a quick glance at sub-Saharan Africa, where several countries gained independence at around the same time as Morocco. Here the average age of the parties in the five so-called longstanding African democracies with a seat share in excess of 10 percent was 35.1 years in 1999, while the average age of the parties in the remaining twenty-five countries passing the threshold was 16.5 years (Kuenzi and Lambright 2001: 446, 456–457). Thus, Morocco compares favorably.8

Table 3.3 Age of the Parties Winning at Least 10 Percent of the Seats Party FDIC UNFPa PI MP USFP RNI UC PJD Average age

1963

1977

1984

1993

1997

2002

2007

0 4 19 –b – – – –

–

–

–

–

–

–

33 19 – – – –

40 26 9 6 1 –

49 35 18 15 10 –

58 39 22 19 14 –

27 24

63 49 32 29

5

10

26

16.4

25.4

23.5

7.6

28.5

36.6

Source: See Appendix A and Figure 3.2. Notes: a. Please note that the UNFP has boycotted all legislative elections since 1984. b. The MP belonged to the FDIC at the time of the 1963 elections.

Party Politics in Morocco Before the Arab Spring

41

A note on party rootedness—going beyond the numbers. Based on the

figures presented in Tables 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3, the Moroccan party system must be said to have had established rather stable roots in society during the period from independence until the eruption of the Arab Spring. Both the seat share held by the parties formed before 1970 and the average age of the parties winning in excess of 10 percent of the seats in the legislative elections compare well, that is, to the extent comparison is possible with the figures for the party systems of a number of sub-Saharan and Latin American countries. That said, anyone with an intimate knowledge of Moroccan politics would argue that the country’s parties were far from rooted in society in this period. In other words, while a number of the parties reached a considerable age, and some also managed to grow to a significant size, this was not as a consequence of the parties establishing societal roots, something that the elevated volatility scores also indicate. Thus, the dealignment experienced in Western Europe, as discussed briefly in the previous chapter, was also very much present in Morocco. Surveys carried out by Maroc 2020, the National Democratic Institute, and the L’Association Daba 2007 lend further support to this argument. According to Maroc 2020 (2002b: 5), only 4 percent of the respondents to its poll stated that they considered themselves to be party activists, while a meager 12 percent declared that they sympathized with one of the political parties. Similarly, voter dissatisfaction was clearly evident in the surveys carried out by the National Democratic Institute (2007: 52; 2008: 24), with the electorate complaining that not enough meetings were being organized between candidates and the electorate during the campaign period, and that party representatives were inaccessible, or simply absent, outside of election time, leaving them very frustrated indeed. Finally, a report by L’Association Daba 2007 (2007) directly highlighted the effect of the inadequate availability of parliamentarians on voting, as 46 percent of the respondents to its survey stated that due to the absence of ties to any of the political parties, they did not know which party to vote for. Hence, when voters chose whom to cast their vote for in the various legislative elections, the main determining factors were charisma and local ties, rather than policy preferences (Kirhlani 2009). In other words, legislative elections were essentially contested in the same way as municipal elections.9 Taking the above into consideration, it is perhaps not so difficult to understand why, despite elections becoming more competitive and growing in importance politically, the abstention rate and the number of invalid votes cast remained high throughout the period stretching from independence until the beginning of the Arab Spring (see Figure 3.1). The lack of strong ties between the electorate and the political parties, and the persistence of the executive monarchy, as discussed in more detail later, undoubtedly proved a lethal combination, that is, killing many a voter’s motivation to turn out on election day or, alternatively, providing an incentive to cast a spoiled ballot in order to voice dissatisfaction.10

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Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

Figure 3.1 Abstention Rates and Invalid Votes Cast, 1963–2011

Sources: Inter-Parliamentary Union (1971); García (2008: 7–8); Carr (2011).

The Issue of Legitimacy: Boycotts, Coup Attempts, and Democratic Elections

Compared to the indicator of party system institutionalization that is party age, the measure of legitimacy provides a better picture of the level of institutionalization of the political system and, therefore, of the party system as a component within it. Based on the data presented in Table 3.4, there is no denying that the larger political parties bestowed legitimacy upon the political system during the years 1963–2007, despite the fact that elections were generally undemocratic in this period.

Table 3.4 Legitimacy

Did any major party boycott the elections? Did the losers accept the results? Were the elections free and fair?

1963

1970

1977

1984

1993

1997

2002

2007

2011

No

UNFP,a PI

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Source: See Appendix A. Note: a. Please note that the UNFP ceased to be an important player following the formation of the USFP in 1972, and the former’s subsequent decision to boycott all legislative elections from 1984 onward.

Party Politics in Morocco Before the Arab Spring

43

Free and fair elections? The country’s very first legislative elections, held in 1963, only a few years after independence had been granted, were heavily marred by manipulation in the form of widespread vote-buying, particularly by the makhzen,11 but also by the two opposition parties, the PI and the Union Nationale des Forces Populaires (UNFP). Furthermore, opposition candidates were harassed by the makhzen, which also doctored the final results of the elections before they were released (Storm 2007: 24; Waterbury 1970: 260–262).12 In addition to these direct avenues of manipulation, the makhzen intervened indirectly in the elections via the creation of the infamous Front de Défense des Institutions Constitutionnelles (FDIC) and the prohibition of the Parti Communiste Marocain (PCM), a party that, although radical, was not antisystemic in the sense of being antidemocratic. Thus, even before the elections were held, the makhzen had effectively designated the winner and ensured that only a manageable opposition would obtain seats in parliament (Waterbury 1970: 262).13 The legislative elections of 1970, 1977, 1984, and 1993 continued in a similar vein, with large-scale vote-buying by the different parties, harassment of opposition candidates, and the prohibition of leftist parties that were beyond the control of the makhzen (García 2000; Munson 1998; Storm 2007). Perhaps due to the problems surrounding the 1963 elections, in which the FDIC won, but not with the desired margin, and the complications suffered within the FDIC due to the party’s artificial nature, the makhzen did not resort to this particular method of indirect intervention again. However, that is not to say that individual makhzen parties were not created and utilized in the legislative elections held since, as this was the case in the aftermath of the 1977 elections and during the elections of 1984. Yet, in both cases, these makhzen parties were individual parties rather than an amalgamation of all makhzen parties into one supposedly stronger unit.14 With the introduction of the process of alternance in the mid-1990s, it was hoped that the nature of the country’s legislative elections would change. Nevertheless, despite the extent of the manipulation being limited in comparison to previous years, both the 1997 elections and those of 2002 were neither free nor fair (Transparency Maroc and Democracy Reporting International 2006; Leveau 1998b).15 With regard to the 1997 elections, the problem was the same as in previous elections: vote-buying was still practiced at a very extensive level (by the political parties and the individual candidates themselves, rather than by the makhzen), opposition candidates were harassed by the makhzen, and there were strong indications that the makhzen had falsified the results before their eventual release to the public (Leveau 1998b; Munson 1998; Storm 2007: 90). It is worth noting that despite intervention by the makhzen continuing to take place even after the reported onset of l’alternance, the protests made by the country’s political parties declined sharply in intensity, a reality that

44

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

can perhaps be explained by the fact that the main victims of the harassment and manipulation were Islamist candidates, who were feared by their opponents either because of their presumed political strength or because of their Islamist character, with some politicians afraid of an “Algerian scenario” materializing in Morocco (Leveau 1998b; Storm 2007: 86–88; Willis 2004: 60).16 Consequently, the outcome of the 2002 elections was heavily influenced before they even took place as the country’s first legal Islamist party, the PJD, agreed to limit the number of candidates it put forward, thereby ruling out the possibility of the party winning the elections (Kristianasen 2007; Mohsen-Finan and Zeghal 2006: 94–95; Storm 2007: 86; Willis 2004: 63). Only five years later, in 2007, the situation had changed significantly, not only in terms of the freedom of the Islamists to participate in the elections, but also with regard to the level of fraud commissioned by the makhzen and the political parties themselves. In contrast to the legislative elections of 2002, the PJD and the other Islamist parties joining them on the scene were allowed to contest the elections freely, enabling them to potentially field candidates in all ninety-five electoral districts. Moreover, whereas fraud was still taking place, this was mainly related to votebuying, and for once the election results were made public in good time, thereby making it less likely that the makhzen had doctored them. In fact, there was general agreement among the election observers that although acts of fraud did take place, these incidents were individual and isolated (Bennani and Boukhari 2007; Commission des Communautés Européennes 2008: 3; Democracy Reporting International 2007: 1; Kerdoudi 2007; Kausch 2008: 83).17 Party strategy—the absence of vehement acts of opposition. Taking

into account the undemocratic nature of most of the legislative elections held in the period from independence until the eruption of the Arab Spring, it is somewhat perplexing that the legitimacy of the political system escaped largely without dents. It could be, of course, that the larger parties were of the opinion that exiting the system in favor of radical, clandestine politics would be less effective than attempting to change the system from within, thereby explaining the virtual lack of boycotts and the reality that the losers always accepted their seats in parliament regardless of the level of electoral manipulation. An altogether more plausible explanation is that the larger parties simply accepted the rules of the game in return for access to power, an argument that will be discussed in more detail in the analysis of pacted politics below. However, in order to properly understand the workings of the political system, it is necessary to first take a detailed look at the formation and evolution of the country’s party system.

Party Politics in Morocco Before the Arab Spring

45

The Formation and Evolution of the Traditionally Dominant Parties The Moroccan party system not only is very large, but also, to make matters worse, is an intricate web of fusions and fissions (see Figure 3.2), a picture that corresponds very well to the high levels of electoral volatility. Of the many parties, very few can be classified as unaffiliated to other units within the party system, and virtually all of them were internally created.18 In fact, most of the country’s parties can be traced back to two of the longstanding entities, namely, the PI, which formed the cornerstone of the independence movement, and the MP, a much more regime-friendly party, which originally emerged as a counterweight to the former. As a consequence of this reality, there is a tendency to classify the parties on the basis of whether they can be said to originate within the independence movement or stem directly/indirectly from the makhzen. Hence, most classifications put emphasis on two factors: a given party’s mode of formation, as well as the party’s general orientation toward the executive monarchy. As discussed in Chapter 2, the analysis here draws heavily upon Wolinetz’s (2002) tentative classificatory scheme due to the stated objective of enabling comparisons with political parties elsewhere. Thus, the categorization of the parties in the subsequent sections differs from previous classifications in that party origins and orientation toward the executive monarchy are viewed as subcategories and are used, among other indicators, to determine whether the different parties belong in the policy-seeking, voteseeking, or office-seeking category. Due to the size of the party system, and taking into account the reality that most of the country’s political parties are without much significance, the analysis below is limited to the six parties that have traditionally dominated Moroccan politics, namely, the PI, the USFP, the MP, the RNI, the UC, and the PJD, plus the more recent addition, the Parti Authenticité et Modernité (PAM), which prior to the Arab Spring was predicted to become a major player (despite calls for the party’s closure) given its founder’s close ties to the monarchy.19 Parties Tracing Back to the Independence Movement

The first of the larger parties to emerge, its formation dating back to December 1943, was the PI. The PI is the closest one comes to an externally created party in Morocco as it originated outside of parliament. However, taking into account the fact that the PI emerged from the nationalist movement, more specifically from the Comité d’Action Marocaine (CAM), an organization described by many as the country’s first political party, label-

1963 elections Nationalist movement

CAM (1934) P. Nat. (1937) PCM (1943)

UNFP (1959)

46

Figure 3.2 The Evolution of the Moroccan Party System 1984 elections

PLS (1968) Ilal Amam (1970) PPS (1974) 23 Mars (1970) USFP (1972) OADP (1983) PADS (1983)

2007 elections

FFD (1997) PVD (1999) PSD (1996); CNI (2001) MD (1997); PGSU (2002) MDI (2000); PSU (2005) FD (2001); PT (2005); PS (2006)

PI (1943) MP (1937) PDI (1946) PDC (1959) Makhzen

MP (1958) FDIC (1963)

“Unaffiliated” parties Note: Abbreviations are defined in Appendix D.

2011 elections

PGV (2008)

PUD (2008)

PSD (1964) MPDC (1967) RNI (1978) PND (1982) UC (1983)

MNP (1992); PAA (2002) MDS (1996); ICD (2002) PJD (1998); PRV (2005) UD (2001); PRE (2002) PRD (2001); PML (2002) UMD (2006); ADL (2002) PED (2002)

PA (1974)

PFC (2001)

PAM (2008) PEDD (2008) PAD (2008) PDN (2009)

Party Politics in Morocco Before the Arab Spring

47

ing the PI as an externally created party seems somewhat of a stretch.20 The party leadership was very much part of the Moroccan political elite at the time but was, of course, external to the ruling elite, which was French (Rézette 1955; Waterbury 1970). In the immediate aftermath of independence, the PI attempted to capitalize on its popular success, a move that was to shape the country’s political system profoundly. With a fresh victory in the elections to the Majlis alShura (Consultative Assembly) in 1956, the party tried to force the king into entering a pact that would effectively see the PI develop into a hegemonic party, while Mohammed V’s powers would be significantly reduced (Lust-Okar 2005: 47; Rézette 1955: 161–162; Waterbury 1970: 175–183). As expected, taking into consideration the very strong position of the king both in terms of political power and popular support, Mohammed V declined the party’s invitation. Rather than joining forces with the PI, which would have created a very powerful alliance indeed, the makhzen decided on an alternative strategy to maintain its power in the long run, namely, encouraging the formation of new political parties. Officially, this was done in an effort to ensure the emergence of a multiparty system, as promised in Mohammed V’s first speech to the people following his return from exile on November 18, 1955 (Mohsen-Finan and Zeghal 2006: 83). In practice, however, there is no doubt that the encouragement of, and support for, the creation of new political parties was done with a view to weaken the PI (Lust-Okar 2005: 47; Waterbury 1970: 145–147). The first party to appear as a consequence of the makhzen’s party pluralism campaign was unsurprisingly a loyalist party, the MP. That said, the makhzen also supported the formation of opposition parties when they, like the UNFP, appeared to constitute much more of a threat to the PI than to the monarchy (Mednicoff 1994: 412; Hermassi 1972: 174). The UNFP was established in 1959 and was the consequence of a long-term and deep-seated rift between the two factions within the PI: the worker-oriented left wing led by Mehdi Ben Barka and the more right-wing conservative faction headed by Allal el-Fassi (García 2000: 10). Soon after the UNFP’s creation, however, it became quite clear that although Ben Barka and el-Fassi did not see eye to eye on a number of major political issues, the main difference between the two lay in the question of support for the monarchy. Whereas the PI had remained a strong backer of the monarchy despite the makhzen’s attempt to stifle the party, Ben Barka’s UNFP actively sought to undermine royal authority, a reality that soon led to harsh repression of the party (Mednicoff 1994: 412; Hermassi 1972: 174). While some politicians, both within and outside of the UNFP, did not find the party revolutionary enough, others were of an entirely different opinion.21 Following strong disagreements within the UNFP leadership, between the Rabat branch headed by Abderrahim Bouabid and the national

48

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

party organization under the direction of Abdellah Ibrahim, over the position to take regarding participation in the country’s fraudulent elections, Bouabid and his followers, who were against the boycott policy adopted by the national party organization, left the UNFP (García 2000: 32; Mednicoff 1994: 419). The UNFP-Rabat, as the new entity was called, suffered severe political repression during 1972–1973, when the organization and the affiliated student union, the Union Nationale des Étudiants Marocains (UNEM) were prohibited, as they were found to constitute a threat to national security in the wake of the coup attempt against Hassan II in 1972. However, Bouabid and his supporters—among them Abderrahmane Youssoufi, Mohamed Fqih Basri, Mohamed Elyazghi, and Omar Benjelloun—remained active, and in 1974 the UNFP-Rabat was awarded the status of political party (García 2000: 32). The USFP had entered the scene. The Makhzen Parties

As just mentioned, the first of the parties established as an alternative to the PI, and with the encouragement of the makhzen, was the MP, an entirely new entity created by Mahjoubi Aherdane and Abdelkrim el-Khatib, two former members of the armed wing of the nationalist movement the Armée de Libération Marocaine (ALM). In contrast to the PI, which mainly catered to the urban middle class, the MP’s target audience was the rural population, which displayed a strong Berber identity. Consequently, the new party filled a void, while at the same time aiding the political ambitions of its founders, who had both held significant posts during the struggle for independence (García 2000: 9; Mednicoff 1994: 417–418; Santucci 2006: 81–82). The MP’s potential as a rival to the PI led to ferocious opposition from the latter, which strongly opposed its legalization. Consequently, the MP did not receive its license until 1959, and only following stern pressure from the monarchy and the resignation from office by a number of cabinet ministers (Pennell 2000: 303–304; Waterbury 1970: 181; Zartman 1964: 21). Because the MP’s formation was heavily supported, albeit not directly orchestrated, by the makhzen, the MP was viewed as a makhzen party at its inception (Waterbury 1970: 145–147). It soon became apparent, however, that the MP was far from strong enough to keep the PI and its socialist partners in check; hence, in 1963 the makhzen forced through the establishment of the FDIC, a short-lived umbrella party. The FDIC, which swallowed the MP, was set up with the sole purpose of bringing the party landscape under control, something that the party rather remarkably failed at, as it did not manage to win an absolute majority of the seats in parliament following the first legislative elections of 1963 (García 2000: 19, 27; Waterbury 1970: 247–248, 254–260).22

Party Politics in Morocco Before the Arab Spring

49

In the wake of the FDIC fiasco, the makhzen began to rely increasingly on so-called independents in parliament. With 65.8 percent of the seats controlled by independents in 1970, and some 46 percent in 1977, it became necessary to formalize the relationship between the independent parliamentarians under a party banner in order to keep them in line, hence, the birth of the RNI in 1978. The RNI, consequently, differed from the PI, the USFP, and the MP in that the party could not in any way be traced back to the independence movement. Yet, that reality did by no means imply that the party was not composed of seasoned politicians. The party’s founder and leader, Ahmed Osman, was the brother-in-law of Hassan II and the country’s prime minister at the time of the RNI’s formation. Thus, with such obvious connections, the party never attempted to keep a secret of the fact that the RNI was a party created by the makhzen and for the makhzen (Mednicoff 1994: 411; García 2000: 49–50). Osman ruled the RNI with an iron fist and used the party as a vehicle for self-promotion, a fact that eventually led to two fissions in the early 1980s, the first resulting in the formation of the Parti National Démocrate (PND) in 1982, and the second in the UC in 1983. In particular, the formation of the UC was strongly backed by the monarchy for the reason that an increase in the number of makhzen parties was likely to result in an increase in makhzen representatives in parliament, while at the same time dividing the makhzen camp to the extent that none of the parties could be certain of the king’s favors. This would force the makhzen parties to compete on displays of loyalty (Achehbar 2008; Harakat 2009; Mansour 1999; Rifi 2007). Some fifteen years after the creation of the UC, yet another sizeable makhzen party was established. This time, however, the makhzen’s intention was not to actively support the formation of a new governing party; rather, the entry of the PJD onto the party scene was encouraged in an effort to ensure the controlled co-optation of the Islamist segment of the population (Wegner 2011; Willis 2004; Mohsen-Finan and Zeghal 2006). There is some disagreement among scholars over when the party formally formed, as the negotiations between the different components of what was to become the PJD were rather protracted. During the 1980s and early 1990s, Abdelilah Benkirane and other key personalities within the clandestine Jama’a al-Islamiyya (which changed its name to al-Islah wa al-Tajdid in 1992) began discussions on how to achieve the goal of inclusion within the political system (Wegner 2004: 7). As it became evident that Benkirane and his associates were unlikely to be able to create a party of their own, as such an entity would not obtain legalization, they entered into negotiations with Abdelkrim el-Khatib’s sympathetic Mouvement Populaire Démocratique et Constitutionnel (MPDC).23 In 1992, Benkirane and el-Khatib reached an agreement, but ongoing developments within the al-Islah wa alTajdid, most notably the merger with the Rabitat al-Mustaqbal al-Islami in

50

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

1996 and the subsequent creation of the Harakat al-Tawhid wa al-Islah (MUR) meant that the fusion was not formalized until 1998, when the MPDC officially changed its name to the PJD (Catusse 2007; Catusse and Zaki 2009: 73; Wegner 2004: 7).24 Despite the elevated levels of electoral volatility, few analysts expected to see the formation of yet another significant loyalist party, largely due to the number of sizeable parties within the party system, all of which had to some extent been co-opted by the regime (Wegner and Pellicer 2009: 1). The king was, after all, very much in control of the party system, not only because of the great number of parties, which he skillfully played against each other, but also as a consequence of his extensive powers. Moreover, there did not seem to be any obvious gap for a new loyalist party to fill as the existing parties already covered the entire political spectrum, that is, to the extent possible given their weak ideological foundations. Thus, the only kind of party missing was a genuine opposition party with strong popular roots; in other words, a party that would pose an alternative to the existing larger parties and the executive monarchy. Speculations that a new party was under way first surfaced in mid-2007, as Fouad Ali el-Himma, best known as “l’ami du roi,” resigned from his position as deputy minister of the interior in order to run for parliament as a socalled independent candidate in the upcoming September elections. It soon became evident that being the king’s friend made it easy not only to enter parliament, but also to attract potential partners once inside. Hence, it did not take long before el-Himma’s list of independents was transformed into first a bloc in parliament, then an association (the Mouvement de tous les Démocrates), and finally a political party, fusing with a number of other independents and smaller political entities in late August 2008 (Aswab 2011c; Herradi 2007a; Lagarde 2009; Sehimi 2008).25 From the outset it was readily apparent that the main purpose of the PAM was to protect the executive monarchy from potential rebels within the party system. Most importantly, the PAM was to weaken the PJD, something that el-Himma made little secret of. His disregard for the PJD was clearly showcased already at the time of the 2007 elections, both during the campaign and at the time of government formation, where elHimma refused to support any proposal that included PJD participation (Bennani 2009a, 2009b; Wegner and Pellicer 2009). In addition to the weakening of the PJD, a further purpose of the PAM was to introduce some uncertainty among the political parties, while strengthening the powers of the monarchy, a function previously served by the RNI and the Mouvement National Populaire (MNP) (Boukhars 2011: 64, 77, 99). Put briefly, the PAM was to inhabit a centrist position, thereby opening up the possibility of cooperation with parties both to the left and to the right of the party. The objective was, in other words, to place the PAM in a location from which the party would be able to make or break cabinets (Herradi 2007a; Boukhars 2011: 83).

Party Politics in Morocco Before the Arab Spring

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Unlike its makhzen party forerunners, such as the FDIC, the RNI, and the UC, the PAM was not created with a view to govern. Rather, the party would not necessarily make or break cabinets by joining the governing coalition, but simply by offering or retracting its support. Hence, following the 2007 elections, admittedly at a time when the PAM was not yet formalized, el-Himma and his associates chose to refrain from holding any cabinet portfolios, lending instead their support to the el-Fassi government formed in the wake of the elections (Herradi 2007b). Thus, by virtue of its voteseeking, rather than office-seeking, nature, and its position as the party able to tip the scales in favor of either the left or the right, King Mohammed VI had in the creation of the PAM a much more lethal weapon against potential dissent than his father did in any of the party’s predecessors.

The Outlook of the Traditionally Dominant Parties from Their Inception to the Eruption of the Arab Spring Ironically, the creation of the PAM came at a time when the need for yet another monarchical vehicle for control seemed to have petered out, as the country’s opposition forces had all become co-opted.26 As the analysis in the subsequent sections demonstrates, whereas the original orientation of the traditionally dominant parties differed somewhat, with some parties being office-seeking and others vote-seeking at the time of their inception, by the time of the legislative elections of 2007 they all had converged in the office-seeking category, with the exception of the MP, which also soon came to toe the line again. Responding to the Environment: Party Change from Inception Until the 2007 Elections

There is absolutely no doubt that the evolution of the larger parties was predominantly shaped by the political environment in which they first emerged and in which they subsequently came to operate. The PI, established preindependence and before competitive legislative elections were held in the country, was originally driven by a desire to obtain a sizeable share of power in a future independent Morocco, although policy considerations were, of course, also high on the party’s agenda, having emerged from the independence movement at a time when the nationalist struggle was still unfolding (Lust-Okar 2005: 47; Rézette 1955: 161–162, 302–307, 318–319; Waterbury 1970: 175–183). Over the years, the PI underwent quite some change, increasing its emphasis on vote-seeking as election results grew in importance with the adoption of the 1996 constitution and the subsequent initiation of l’alternance. At the same time, policy became less prominent

52

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

on the party’s agenda as strong policy preferences carried the risk of upsetting not only the monarchy, but also potential coalition partners (Boukhars 2011: 61–83; Storm 2007). In other words, the PI responded to its environment and fine-tuned its game accordingly, thereby ensuring continuous access to power at the highest level—the party’s key objective, as it remained squarely office-seeking despite the various developments.27 Although created more than a decade later, the MP was also born into an environment where electoral contestation, and therefore vote-seeking, was without much importance as the first postindependence elections were yet to be scheduled. With no need to appeal to the electorate, not only because of the uncertainty of elections, but also because, as a makhzen party, the MP was ensured a powerful position, the party was naturally officeseeking at the time of its formation (Waterbury 1970: 145–147). Over the years, with the enhanced role played by election results at the time of cabinet formation, the MP found itself in a situation where it, just like the PI and the other larger parties, was forced to increase its emphasis on voteseeking if it was to remain influential. At the time of the 2007 legislative elections, the party rather unexpectedly took this latest orientation to a whole new level when it declined an invitation to join the government, choosing instead a seat among the opposition (Aswab 2010). The MP’s career as a vote-seeking party was short-lived, however, as the party leadership soon came to the realization that the lack of cabinet portfolios left the party without much political influence. Hence, when the cabinet was reshuffled in July 2009, the MP returned to the fold (Aswab 2009a, 2009b; Bennani 2009c). Established in the early 1970s, in an age when the country had experienced a number of relatively competitive legislative elections, and only two years after the lifting of the state of emergency that had been imposed following the leftist riots of 1965, the USFP took a very different form from the MP and the PI: it was a policy-seeking, rather than an office-seeking, party. Not only did the USFP have to appeal to the electorate to gain access to power, even if only as a partner to the PI within the opposition, but also the party had to be very ideologically committed, partly due to its socialist credentials at a time when Moroccan leftists were persecuted, but also because of the fact that the USFP emerged as a consequence of a fission that had ideological roots (Bencheikh 2009; García 2000: 10; Hermassi 1972: 174; Mednicoff 1994: 412). Over the years, the USFP adapted to the political environment and learned to play by the makhzen’s rules, moderating its policies significantly and transforming into an office-seeking party. This reality saw the party do very well in terms of access to power, as it was included in all cabinets formed in the alternance era prior to the Arab Spring. The USFP’s sudden willingness to accept cabinet portfolios after decades of refusing to enter government had its drawbacks, though (Storm 2007: 50,

Party Politics in Morocco Before the Arab Spring

53

70). Whereas the party used to be viewed as an opposition force, and by many voters also as the country’s only hope for changing the political system in a more democratic direction from within, that was no longer the case after the formation of the USFP-led cabinet in 1998. Although the USFP remained nominally critical of the regime, the party was by no means in opposition to the executive monarchy, but had itself become part of the system, which is probably also why the USFP saw its vote share decline significantly in the subsequent elections despite its continued emphasis on vote-seeking (Boukhars 2011: 85–106, 118; Lust-Okar 2005: 86; Santucci 2006: 100). The UC and the RNI, on the other hand, although created in the late 1970s and early 1980s, respectively, when Moroccans were even more accustomed to elections than they were when the USFP was formed, were virtually exclusively office-seeking at their inception and remained so at the time of the 2007 elections. The reality that both the UC and RNI were staunchly office-seeking is hardly surprising given that both parties were guaranteed key cabinet portfolios as they were created directly by the makhzen in order to govern. They did not, in other words, have to compete for votes so as to guarantee a powerful position; their formation was not the result of external or popular pressures, hence they were not ideologically rooted, and since they were not vote-seeking, they also were not under any pressure to formulate ideological principles (Achehbar 2008; García 2000: 49–50; Harakat 2009; Mansour 1999; Mednicoff 1994: 411; Rifi 2007).28 Taking into account that elections became more central to the process of cabinet formation from the mid-1990s onward, one would assume that the RNI and the UC would have adapted to the changed political environment. However, while the RNI reoriented slightly on the vote-seeking front, the UC hardly moved,29 not even after it found itself crashing at the polls at the beginning of the twenty-first century, or after being denied office in the cabinets formed in the immediate aftermath of the legislative elections of 1993, 1997, 2002, and 2007. In contrast to the RNI and the UC, the PJD had strong ideological foundations when it was established—too strong for some. Hence, the country’s first Islamist party found itself in a situation where its legalization was hailed by a large segment of the population, which finally had a legitimate representative, while the makhzen was very concerned about the party’s potential influence on Moroccan politics. Consequently, the degree to which the PJD was allowed to exhibit its religious character and the extent to which it was permitted to participate in its first legislative elections in 2002 was severely restricted. As mentioned previously, it is common knowledge that the PJD entered into a bargain with the makhzen, agreeing to soften its policy profile and only field a limited number of candidates, thereby essentially ruling out the possibility of the party’s winning the 2002

54

Party Politics and the Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

elections (Catusse 2004; McFaul and Cofman Wittes 2008: 22; Willis 2004). Yet, it is also well known that the PJD fought tooth and nail to win the constituencies in which it did field candidates (Willis 2004: 64). Hence, it is safe to say that when the PJD originally entered the party system, the party was very much a vote-seeking entity, although it certainly had stronger ideological principles than the majority of its competitors and undoubtedly also harbored ambitions of one day gaining office (Willis 2004: 72). Although the PJD continued to display much stronger policy preferences and a deeper ideological commitment than its counterparts, the party nonetheless moderated significantly over the years. At the time of the 2007 legislative elections, a widely held view was that the PJD had become makhzenized, that is, demonstrating its willingness to play by the rules of the game as defined by the makhzen and thereby transforming into an office-seeking party (Bennani 2005; Rhandi 2005a, 2005b; Ksikes 2006; Storm 2008: 40).30

Party Convergence and “Pacted” Politics Prior to the Arab Spring Despite the reality that the larger parties had undergone some change in the postindependence period—and in the case of the PJD and the USFP, even significant transformation—it is not so much the process of change undergone by the individual parties that is of interest. Rather, it is the general pattern of change. What is evident is that shortly before the eruption of the Arab Spring, a situation had emerged where all of the traditionally dominant parties, plus the PAM, could best be classified as patronage parties. The parties were, in other words, converging. There is no doubt that the materialization of a party system that was heavily dominated by patronage parties, whether in the traditional sense or the cartel-party variant, had significant repercussions for the prospects for democracy at the time, given the defining characteristics of this type of parties. According to Steven Wolinetz (2002: 152, 159–161), who distinguishes between patronage parties and cartel parties, the objective of the former is to acquire patronage and personal benefits, while the latter are established in order to ensure party survival. More importantly, however, Wolinetz argues that none of the two types of parties are primarily concerned with appealing to the electorate, rather, they fall within the office-seeking category of parties save for a few cases. This view is echoed to a large extent by Richard Katz and Peter Mair (1995: 16–17, 19–20) in their seminal work on cartel parties, as they contend that while some of these compete to maximize their share of the vote, others compete to maximize their share of patronage, which in many cases is best achieved by limiting competition and instead

Party Politics in Morocco Before the Arab Spring

55

collaborating, thereby forming a cartel with a view to monopolizing state resources (Katz and Mair 1995: 16–17, 19–20).31 In the Moroccan case, this did not bode well for the future of the democratization process as the workings of the political system (i.e., the executive monarchy) were such that political power was generally acquired through tacit pacts with the monarchy, rather than as a consequence of excellence at the polls. The Executive Monarchy: Implications for Decisionmaking

One of the main reasons the political parties came to find themselves in a situation where access to power was largely determined by implicit agreements with the monarchy was the character of the country’s constitution. Over the years and regardless of which version, this legal text has been one of the monarchy’s most powerful tools in keeping the political parties at bay, as the constitution has assisted in legitimizing the excessive powers of the executive monarchy domestically, and also internationally. Prior to the Arab Spring, this reality led to a situation in which very few laws emanated from parliament, whether the lower or the upper house, and those that did were of hardly any political significance. Parliament was, in other words, effectively reduced to an institution akin to a majlis al-shura, that is, an advisory body to the all-powerful monarch (Boukhars 2011: 44–45).32 This unequal distribution of power between the monarch and parliament prior to the Arab Spring meant that not only was the Moroccan system of government far from democratic, the political parties had also largely been robbed of both the procedural and, to a lesser extent, the representative functions classically attributed to political parties. Rather than being a parliamentary democracy, the country was an executive monarchy in which the king not only reigned, but also governed. In addition to the prerogatives bestowed upon the king in the constitution, his powerful position in political life was made even more intrinsic by the fact that the country’s politicians were notoriously bad at working together. This lack of cooperation was partly a consequence of the extremely personalistic character of the political parties (as well as politics in general), and also due to the reality that most cabinets in the postindependence period were not only very broad, but also oversized, making it very difficult to reach consensus on contentious issues, which, by nature, most policies of significance tend to be (Boukhars 2011: 46–48, 75–78; Lust-Okar 2005: 155; Storm 2008: 49–51).33 As a consequence of the impasse so often reached, combined with his extensive powers, it was usually the king—both Mohammed VI and his father before him—who tabled and pressed through parliament high-profile bills, among them the moudawana (personal status code) in 2004 and the law on political parties in 2005, when the elected parliamentarians very publicly failed to reach an agreement.34 The reality that the king tended to

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serve as the primus motor when important decisions were being made served the monarchy well over the years. Put briefly, the king not only stayed in control of the political process owing to his role as the initiator, but also looked proactive (and therefore laudable in the eyes of the citizenry) at the same time. Whereas the political parties, and politicians in general, were largely viewed as inefficient and corrupt, and therefore suffered under low levels of public trust (see Table 3.5), the monarch’s legitimacy as a political force soared (el-Alama 2007; Boukhars 2011: 78–80; Denoeux 2000: 168; Zerrour 2010). In other words, while Moroccans were not necessarily happy with the persistence of the executive monarchy, everyone acknowledged that if something needed doing, then the king was the one to get the job done, and speedily too.35 Pacted Politics: The Function of Political Parties in Morocco

The inability of parliamentarians to reach agreement on key political issues; the low public trust in parliament, government, and the political parties; the king’s wide-reaching, constitutionally enshrined prerogatives; and the comparatively limited powers of parliament were all factors that contributed to party convergence and so-called pacted politics taking hold in the country. In other words, the reality that in the years immediately prior to the Arab Spring the traditionally dominant parties plus the PAM were clustered closely together as they all took the form of patronage parties, whether in the classical sense or the cartel-party variant, can largely be explained by these factors, thereby lending further support to the argument that party change is predominantly determined by the environment. As discussed previously during the analysis of the formation and evolution of the traditionally dominant parties, some of these were independent

Table 3.5 Trust in Institutions (in percentage) Trust Institution Army Labor unions Police Parliament Government Political parties

A Great Deal/Quite a Lot

None

68.5 41.8 61.4 44.5 54.7 36.0

9.7 21.3 11.8 17.5 12.9 27.6

Source: World Values Survey Databank (dataset: Morocco 2007). Note: Please note that trust in the monarch was not included in the survey. In 2006, a law was passed that prohibited polls from including any questions relating to the king’s performance, popularity, and so on (Boukhars 2011: 21).

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of, as well as in opposition to, the makhzen at the time of their formation. Some also made an attempt to establish links with the electorate, albeit largely because they were dependent upon winning a large share of the vote in order to gain access to power, a factor that was also the main reason behind the increased emphasis on vote-seeking in the alternance era, where election results have played a somewhat more important role in determining the allocation of cabinet portfolios (Boukhars 2011; Storm 2007). But, as discussed earlier, when the Arab Spring erupted, things had changed significantly. None of the larger parties was overly concerned with its representative functions, nor were any of them in opposition to the makhzen, or even independent of it. They were all either makhzen parties or had become coopted by the regime, albeit to varying extents, as their main emphasis was on acquiring patronage from the monarchy. It appears that over the years, the non-makhzen parties had come to the realization that they were weak vis-à-vis the monarchy, and that the only means of ensuring continuous access to power was via entering into a pact with the regime, thereby ceasing all remotely oppositional activities in return for seats in parliament or cabinet portfolios. Votes may have counted for more than they had prior to the alternance era, but it was still the all-powerful king who distributed power. With the former opposition parties entering into a pact with the monarchy, the function of parties in Morocco changed in earnest. Whereas during the early independence years and the années de plomb (from the 1960s until the late 1990s) there was at least some notion of opposition politics—that is, with elections actually serving as a venue for contestation to the extent that parties that posed a potential threat to the monarchy were prohibited from partaking, seriously harassed, their results altered, or simply chose to boycott the elections on the grounds that they were undemocratic—this was no longer the case following the initiation of l’alternance. The main function of all of the larger parties, regardless of their origins, was from then on to uphold the status quo, the survival of the executive monarchy whose system of patronage they all benefited extensively from. In other words, rather than being brokers between civil society and the state, the role traditionally afforded political parties but never wholeheartedly pursued by the Moroccan parties, these parties had become nothing but agents of the state; hence, all the pretences previously upheld were effectively gone.36

Notes 1. The term executive monarchy was coined by Ottaway and Riley (2006). 2. Please note that all references made to election results are based on the data presented in Appendix A. 3. Sartori (1976: 126–127) operates with two sets of definitions, one numerical, the other based on ideological distance and intensity. According to the first classifi-

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catory method, conventional multiparty systems can be defined either as examples of limited pluralism (cases with three to five parties) or extreme pluralism (six to eight parties). The second classificatory method divides these party systems between two categories: moderate pluralism (fragmented, but not polarized party systems) and polarized pluralism (fragmented and polarized party systems). As discussed later, it is virtually impossible to classify the Moroccan parties on the basis of ideology. 4. The emergence of the traditionally dominant parties is discussed in greater detail in subsequent sections. 5. Please refer back to the discussion on theories of party system institutionalization in Chapter 2. 6. On this particular indicator, it is difficult to make comparisons to other regions. In the case of sub-Saharan Africa, older parties held in excess of 70 percent of the seats in nine cases, and no seats at all in another thirteen cases (Kuenzi and Lambright 2001: 453–454). In Mainwaring and Scully’s study of Latin America, older parties commanded in excess of 50 percent of the seats in eight out of twelve cases, and there were no examples of cases where an old party held no seats at all. Please note that in the Latin American cases, the cutoff year was rather arbitrarily set at 1950, reflecting nevertheless the longer experience with competitive elections (Mainwaring and Scully 1995: 13–14). For more on the formation of the Moroccan parties, please see the discussion in subsequent sections as well as Figure 3.2. 7. See the discussion in subsequent sections as well as Figure 3.2 for more on the formation (and age) of the Moroccan parties. 8. Morocco also compares favorably to a number of Latin American cases. According to Mainwaring and Scully (1995: 15), the average age of parties with a seat share of at least 10 percent by 1993 was as follows: Brazil (12 years), Ecuador (19 years), Bolivia (20 years), Peru and Venezuela (both 33 years), Chile (37 years). In the remaining six cases, the average age was higher than 40 years. 9. The National Democratic Institute (2007: 47) concurs with this assessment, although it points out that in the 2007 legislative elections, the campaign centered less on individual candidates and personal relationships. 10. It is, of course, possible to argue that due to the high illiteracy rate, a large proportion of the electorate undoubtedly cast invalid votes as a consequence of filling in the ballot paper incorrectly, and that a significant number of illiterate voters preferred to stay at home—abstaining or selling their vote—in order to save themselves the trouble. However, taking into consideration that literacy rates for both men and women improved substantially over the past decade, while the abstention rate and the proportion of invalid votes cast both remained high, illiteracy alone could not possibly account for these findings (UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization 2002). 11. The term makhzen is described in several ways. Cubertafond (1997: 10) argues that today, the makhzen is essentially a popular construct used to denote the king and his entourage. Leveau (1998a) defines the makhzen as “the central administration that was run, initially, by the sultan, and later by the king. Historically, the Makhzen also meant the territory administered by the monarch, as opposed to the bled siba, which was the territory outside the control of the central administration.” Here the term makhzen is used to describe the powerhouse that is the king and his men in the central administration. 12. The harassment of the opposition was so grave that the UNFP and the PI at one point considered a boycott (Waterbury 1970: 261). 13. A number of political parties have been prohibited over the years. However, apart from the PCM and the Parti de la Libération et du Socialisme (PLS) in 1963

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and 1970, none of these parties (Ilal Amam, 23 Mars, and the Parti de l’Avant Garde Démocratique Socialiste [PADS]) was ever significant in size or had demonstrated the potential to become so. 14. The two makhzen parties referred to are the RNI and the UC. For more on their formation, see the discussion later in this chapter. 15. Please note that on the issue of the freedom and fairness of the 2002 elections, the opinion expressed here appears to differ from the view put forward in Storm (2007). However, in Storm (2007), the criteria for measuring were somewhat different, stipulating that the elections must be “reasonably competitive, devoid of massive fraud, and with broad suffrage,” rather than “free and fair.” The 2002 elections were certainly reasonably competitive and had broad suffrage, and while the presence of fraud was acknowledged in the analysis, in hindsight, the extent of the manipulation was perhaps underestimated. 16. That is not to say that no complaints were made regarding vote-buying, harassment, and so on. See Chahir (2002). 17. See also the UN Development Programme–Programme on Governance in the Arab Region at http://www.undp-pogar.org/countries/theme.aspx?t=3&cid=12. The page was last visited on July 15, 2010. Please note that not all election observers are in agreement. For an example of a report citing large-scale fraud and manipulation, see Zarrouk (2008). 18. None of the larger parties can be classified as unaffiliated. Only three of the smaller parties (the Alliance de Libertés [ADL], the Parti de l’Environnement et du Développement [PED], and the Parti des Forces Citoyennes [PFC]), which succeeded in obtaining seats in parliament in the 2007 elections, could be defined as unaffiliated. That said, both the ADL and the PED joined the Parti Authenticité et Modernité (PAM) in 2008 (Aswab 2011b; Herradi 2007a; Lagarde 2009; Sehimi 2008). 19. For more on the performance of the PAM in the legislative elections of 2011, please refer to Chapter 4. Suffice to say here that the PAM did not live up to the original expectations, yet the party remained an important player. 20. The CAM does not meet Sartori’s (1976) criteria, seeing that it never presented—and had elected—candidates in national elections. Rather, the CAM (also known as al-Kutlat al-‘Amal al-Watanī) was essentially a collection of ten nationalists who shared the same reform vision for Morocco, and who had lost their previous public voice with the prohibition of the weekly L’Action du People by the French authorities in March 1934 (Rézette 1955: 90–91). The CAM consisted of two wings, one led by Allal el-Fassi, which eventually became the PI, and another headed by Mohamed Hassan el-Ouezzani, which later gave rise to a number of parties closely affiliated with the makhzen (the Mouvement Populaire [MP], the Parti Démocratique de l’Indépendance [PDI], and the Parti Démocratique Constitutionnel [PDC]). The PDC formed part of the first makhzen party, the FDIC. 21. Among the former were Ali Yata, the leader of the PCM, and Mohamed BenSaïd Idder, who broke with the UNFP and formed the clandestine 23 Mars in 1970 (Flory 1968: 151; Mednicoff 1994: 408; Rollinde 2002: 146–147). 22. See also Appendix A. Note that the MP’s entry into the FDIC was a long time under way. An anti-PI alliance had already been struck between the MP and the PDC in 1960, but it was never formalized as anything more than an alliance as the MP was reluctant to merge with the PDC (Waterbury 1970: 257). In the end, the MP was more or less forced by the makhzen to join the FDIC under the leadership of Ahmed Reda Guédira, the then minister of the interior and close friend of the king (Waterbury 1970: 247–248).

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23. Abdelkrim el-Khatib was very politically active, hence he played a key role within the MP, the MPDC, and the PJD. 24. Although candidates from al-Islah wa al-Tajdid participated in the legislative elections of 1997 on the MPDC’s ballot, they did so under the MPDC banner. The PJD had not been officially created by then. 25. Namely, the Parti al-Ahd (PAA), the ADL, the PED, the Parti de l’Initiative Citoyennes pour le Développement (ICD), and the PND. 26. Please note that the PAM is not included in the discussion as the party was only formed in 2008. 27. The composition of the cabinets formed in the immediate aftermath of the legislative elections held in the postindependence era is as follows: 1963: FDIC; 1970: n/a as state of emergency; 1977: MP, PI; 1984: MP, PND, RNI, UC; 1993: technocrats only; 1997: FFD, MNP, PI, PPS, PSD, RNI, USFP; 2002: MNP, MP, PI, PPS, RNI, USFP; 2007: PI, PPS, RNI, USFP (García 2000; Storm 2007, 2008). 28. The UC has been classified as slightly more vote-seeking than the RNI at the time of its formation as the party had to compete against the RNI for the position as the favored makhzen party. However, taking into consideration that the UC was created last, and that its establishment was orchestrated by the makhzen, the party leadership could rest quite assured that it was likely to be the most preferred of the two, although there were, of course, no guarantees. 29. The UC’s office-seeking character was clearly reflected in the party’s low coverage of electoral districts, which in comparison to the other larger parties was very poor indeed at the time of the 2007 elections. While the UC presented candidates in 80 out of 95 constituencies, the PI and the USFP fielded candidates in all constituencies, the PJD all but one, the RNI 91, and the MP 90. Among the smaller parties, the Front des Forces Démocratiques (FFD) presented candidates in 94 districts, the Parti du Progrès et du Socialisme (PPS) in 92, while the Mouvement Démocratique et Social (MDS) and the Parti Travailliste (PT) both ran in 69 constituencies (Boukhari 2007). 30. Al-Adl wal-Ihsan, the PJD’s largest rival on the Islamist scene, accused the party of selling out due to its acceptance of the executive monarchy and its willingness to play by the rules of the game as defined by King Hassan II and later Mohammed VI. In contrast to the PJD, al-Adl wal-Ihsan adopted a “politically extremist”—in contrast to “religiously extremist”—line, refusing to bow to the monarchy, and therefore remaining without legalization as a political party. See Cavatorta (2007) and Willis (2012: 184–186). 31. Thus, on the basis of Katz and Mair (1995), it would appear more correct to place the cartel party closer to the position of the patronage party in Wolinetz’s (2002) tentative classificatory scheme. 32. Following the 1996 constitution, among the king’s prerogatives were the powers to appoint the prime minister (article 24), appoint the cabinet upon the nonbinding advice of the prime minister (article 24), and to preside over cabinet meetings (article 25). Furthermore, article 19—often referred to as the “supraconstitution”—bestowed the monarch with the powers he deemed necessary to protect the country in his capacity as head of state, symbol of unity, supreme arbiter, and protector of the country and the faith. In other words, article 19 constituted a virtual carte blanche. 33. An oversized cabinet is one that includes more parties than strictly necessary to obtain a parliamentary majority. 34. For more on this issue, particularly the king’s role in the adoption of the 2004 moudawana, please refer to Boukhars (2011), Cavatorta and Dalmasso (2009), and Storm (2007).

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35. When asked to assess the “democraticness in own country,” only 1.6 percent of those surveyed by the World Values Survey (2007 dataset) replied that they found Morocco to be completely democratic. Moreover, to make matters worse, when respondents rated the country’s level of democracy on a scale from one to ten, with ten being the highest achievable score, 64.9 percent afforded a grade of five or below, thereby demonstrating quite a degree of dissatisfaction with the workings of the executive monarchy, which, of course, has negative implications for the political parties as well as the makhzen. See also Boukhars (2011: 61–64). 36. Another key characteristic of the cartel party variant of the patronage party (Katz and Mair 1995, 2009; Wolinetz 2002: 148).

4 Prospects for Democracy in Morocco

On January 14, 2011, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s reign came to an end in Tunisia. Barely a month later, on February 11, Hosni Mubarak stepped down as the president of Egypt. Not much time was to pass before the Arab Spring spread to Morocco, and on February 20 the first coordinated protests took place across the country in cities such as Agadir, Casablanca, Fès, al-Hoceïma, Laâyoune, Marrakech, Rabat, and Tangier. Men with beards, women with headscarves, men with baseball caps, women with their hair flowing freely, youths, the elderly, and children, all with clenched fists, and all demanding reform: This was the Arab Spring in Morocco—a rare show of unity between citizens from all backgrounds, whether rich or poor, young or old, man or woman, Islamist or leftist. Marching together in largescale demonstrations,1 the protesters, who were brought together by the Mouvement du 20 Février, carried their placards demanding the end to makhzen rule. This requirement was symbolized by the calls for the dismantling of the Parti Authenticité et Modernité (PAM), the resignation of the prime minister Abbas el-Fassi,2 the exit from political life and a formal investigation of Fouad Ali el-Himma,3 the resignation and formal investigation of Mounir el-Majidi,4 the exit from politics of Ilyas Omari,5 and, finally, the bringing down of the Fassi Fihris6 (Akdim et al. 2011b, 2011c; Hibou 2011b: 8–9; Mekhennet 2011; Mrabet et al. 2011; Viscusi and Alami 2011). In comparison to the events in Egypt and Tunisia, the Arab Spring protests in Morocco were not only much smaller, they were also much more peaceful. This reality was undoubtedly a reflection of the fact that vis-à-vis the regimes of Ben Ali and Mubarak, life under King Mohammed VI was not that bad. Very few Moroccans, including the Islamist segment of the population, appeared to desire a future without the monarchy, and therefore, 63

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unlike in Egypt and Tunisia, the head of state was not a direct target of the protesters. Rather, in addition to the end of corruption among the country’s politicians, what they wanted was an end to the executive monarchy, not the end of the monarchy as such. Consequently, despite the fragmented nature of the Mouvement du 20 Février, which will be discussed in greater detail later, its various components all adhered to the initial demands outlined in the movement’s manifesto, namely, the establishment through peaceful means of a transparent political system in which those in power would be held accountable to the citizenry.7 As the analysis in this chapter will demonstrate, the Arab Spring and the activities of the Mouvement du 20 Février did not improve the prospects for democracy in Morocco. On the contrary, largely because of the fragmented nature of the Mouvement du 20 Février, which accordingly did not constitute a serious rival to any of the larger political parties, and due to the proactive nature of Mohammed VI, who swiftly introduced political reforms and brought forward the date of the legislative elections, the Mouvement du 20 Février proved for the most part unsuccessful in achieving its goals. Admittedly, the new constitution was an improvement compared to its predecessor from 1996, but as shall become evident in the discussion in this chapter, the advances were marginal indeed. Hence, with most of his prerogatives still intact, with a new constitution to legitimate his powers, and with his reputation as proactive and efficient greater than ever, Mohammed VI emerged strengthened from the Arab Spring, and the executive monarchy remained very firmly in place. Detracting further from the prospects for democracy was the reality that all of the larger political parties supported the status quo.8 Rather than taking the opportunity to pressure the monarchy at a time when popular protests had ousted authoritarian leaders elsewhere in North Africa, the traditionally dominant parties plus the PAM showed their true colors (i.e., their patronage party credentials), as they chose to cooperate with the regime, ensuring its survival and their own continued access to the spoils via the adoption of a new toothless constitution and the holding of speedy legislative elections that would appease the majority of the dissatisfied citizenry.9 With no genuine opposition parties of significant size, with virtually no likelihood that a sizeable genuine opposition party will emerge, and with the potential democratic moment that was the Arab Spring wasted, the prospects for democracy in Morocco appear bleaker than ever.10

The Arab Spring as a Catalyst for New Reform-Oriented Parties The events unfolding in Morocco during the Arab Spring were centered around the Mouvement du 20 Février, a small collection of young, leftist

Prospects for Democracy in Morocco

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activists in cyberspace that evolved into a social movement incorporating elements not only from the extreme left, but also the salafist milieu and amazigh advocacy groups (Akdim et al. 2011a, 2011b; Karam 2011).11 Although a network already existed prior to Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, it was the popular momentum that led to the fall of Ben Ali and Mubarak that inspired these young intellectuals to establish the Mouvement du 20 Février, sparking the transition from various interlinked discussion groups on Facebook to a genuine movement seeking political change (Akdim et al. 2011a; Boukhriss 2011). It is worth noting, however, that although the movement’s chief objective was the creation of independent and democratic institutions, it was never the intention to transform the Mouvement du 20 Février into a political party (Hibou 2011b). Rather, the aim was to pressure the political parties and the monarchy into initiating political reforms, which would bring about the transition to parliamentary democracy. Because of the pressure group nature of the Mouvement du 20 Février, the founders maintained the loose structure of the movement (with no formal leader or headquarters) even as it expanded, arguing that this provided for spontaneity and independence (Boukhriss 2011; Mrabet et al. 2011).12 However, as membership was left open to anyone willing to publicly endorse the initial list of demands, the Mouvement du 20 Février soon found itself changing from a largely leftist outfit into a deeply fragmented entity as salafists, many of them members of al-Adl wal-Ihsan, swamped the movement due to al-Adl wal-Ihsan’s ability to mobilize the masses, and the amazigh movement also joined the ranks.13 While this led some of the original members of the movement to break away, it did not have a profound impact, as the key figures, regardless of their background and although they had opposing views on several issues, seemed to concur that political reform needed to occur along the lines of the initial set of demands and that their call for change would be much stronger if uttered in unison (Karam 2011; Mrabet et al. 2011).

The Impact of the Mouvement du 20 Février on the Existing Political Order Despite the decision made by the leftists, salafists, and amazigh activists to join forces and overcome their differences, as well as their demonstrated ability to mobilize the masses on a repeated basis, the Mouvement du 20 Février has been largely unsuccessful. Most important, the movement has proved unable to shake the foundations of the executive monarchy. In fact, Mohammed VI has emerged significantly strengthened from the Arab Spring protests for two reasons: first, it was the king, not the political parties, who took the initiative to bring forward the date of the legislative elec-

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tions and to swiftly reform the constitution; second, the new constitution, while introducing a number of changes, did not significantly reduce the king’s powers. The Constitution of 2011: Process and Contents

With regard to the constitution of 2011, the old saying that in Morocco everything begins with a royal speech yet again proved true. Following weeks of demonstrations by the Mouvement du 20 Février, it was suddenly announced that Mohammed VI would be giving a television appearance outlining a new reform agenda. In his speech on March 9, 2011, the king sought to portray himself as someone who understood and sympathized with the concerns voiced by the Mouvement du 20 Février, in fact so much so that he had formed a committee tasked with formulating a reform agenda long before the Arab Spring erupted, and as it happened, that committee had just finalized its report (Le Monde with AFP 2011a).14 The committee referred to in the king’s speech was the consultative body set up on January 3, 2010, with a view to develop a model for the advanced regionalization of the country. Among the recommendations made by the consultative committee on regionalization were constitutional and political reforms, without which advanced regionalization would not be possible. Hence, Mohammed VI proclaimed, it was necessary to adopt a new constitution, which would facilitate the institutionalization of advanced regionalization at the highest level. As part of this process of constitutional review, other clauses of the constitution would, of course, also be revised, and new articles would be added, the aim being the modernization of the entire political system.15 On the issue of the modernization of the political system, the king declared that he envisioned the process centering on seven key issues: the constitutionalization of the plurality of the Moroccan identity (including the specific mentioning of the amazigh element); the consolidation of the rule of law and the safeguard of human rights (including the expansion of civil liberties); the establishment of an independent judiciary; guaranteeing the separation of powers; the strengthening of vehicles for citizen participation (with particular reference to the political parties and the establishment of a parliamentary opposition); the consolidation of mechanisms for ensuring the moralization of public life; and the constitutionalization of institutions central to good governance. Despite these impressive promises, however, the real message to take home was that Mohammed VI was still very much in charge, and although he would be initiating reforms, this move was made due to his own foresight, and not because he was bowing to the pressures of the protest movement.16 Mohammed VI’s swift reaction to the Arab Spring protests made him appear, in the eyes of many of the protesters, as both dynamic and respon-

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sive. There is no denying that very few Moroccans bought the line that the king did not feel pressured into initiating constitutional reform by the activities of the Mouvement du 20 Février, but that did not seem to matter. To many of those participating in the demonstrations, what was of importance was the fact that the constitution would be revised, and sooner rather than later. That the king was once again the primus motor was just a minor detail, something that seems quite ironic given the demands of the Mouvement du 20 Février centering on the issue of the undemocratic nature of the political system and the key actors within it. However, as the constitutional referendum demonstrated, the Mouvement du 20 Février was either much smaller than it claimed or out of touch with its supporters in terms of the lengths to which the campaign should be taken, which seems altogether more plausible. Despite the participation rate of 70.4 percent being the lowest in any constitutional referendum held in the country postindependence, the share of the electorate turning out to cast a vote on July 1, 2011, was much higher than that of the 2007 legislative elections, where the abstention rate was an astonishing 63 percent (Bennani and Boudarham 2011b).17 Of the many voters who cast a valid vote, no less than 98.5 percent were in favor of the draft constitutional text, an overwhelming victory for the monarchy and its skilled propaganda campaign that had dominated every inch of newspaper column and airtime in the months between the proclamation on March 9 that a new constitution was to be drafted and the July 1 referendum (Bennani and Boudarham 2011b; Maghreb Arab Presse 2011b).18 Taking the results of the constitutional referendum into consideration, it was hardly a surprise that the popularity of the regular Sunday protests organized by the Mouvement du 20 Février began to wane, first in the aftermath of the king’s speech, and then in earnest following the referendum. In the salons and cafés, people had begun to question the rationale of the continued existence of the movement and the need for further demonstrations (Bennani and Boudarham 2011b).19 Yet, it was clear that the new constitution did not fundamentally alter the status quo; on the contrary, it institutionalized it.20 Put briefly, although the constitution of 2011 made for some alterations to the distribution of power (at least on paper), the overall impact has been negligible.21 Admittedly, parliament—and therefore, by extension, also the political parties to a certain degree—has been strengthened, principally by the fact that the new constitution bestows it with the powers to pass laws on most issues.22 That said, the extent to which parliament will make use of these powers, and how the king will interpret his role in the legislative process, is much less clear. And this is the crux of the matter. While parliament has formally been empowered by the 2011 constitution, it remains extremely weak vis-à-vis the monarch, who has retained virtually all of his powers, including his religious position as amir al-muminine (commander of

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the faithful), which is a great source of popular legitimacy. Following article 47 of the new constitution, it is still the king who appoints the cabinet ministers, and although he is obliged to consider the advice of the prime minister (also appointed by the king, albeit now from the largest party), he is still not bound by the prime minister’s recommendations.23 Article 42 formalizes the king’s role as head of state, symbol of unity, supreme arbiter, and protector of the country, hence the much debated “supra-constitution,” which bestows the monarch with the powers he deems necessary to protect the country, remains in place. Finally, the supreme security council is an important addendum to the constitution as it effectively provides the monarch with a means to bypass an obstructive or inefficient cabinet given the extremely ambiguous wording of article 54, which outlines the structure and workings of the new body. The Political Parties and the Constitutional Debate

So far, the political parties have barely been mentioned in the discussion of the new constitution. Sadly, the reason for their virtual omission is the reality that the parties were largely silent or spoke up only when prompted to do so by the king. At this crucial point in Arab history, at the time of a potential democratic moment in Morocco, the larger political parties showed their true colors. They were all, every single one of them, regardless of their origins, regime parties—supporters of the staus quo and guarantors of the executive monarchy and its well-established system of patronage. There are a number of possible explanations as to why the larger political parties chose to back the royal initiative so forcefully, participating both willingly and also seemingly quite enthusiastically, in the great propaganda circus that took place in the run-up to the July referendum (Bennani and Boudarham 2011b; Maghreb Arab Presse 2011b). The most plausible explanation, after taking into account several factors such as the officeseeking nature of the parties, their reaction to the bringing forward of the legislative elections,24 and, of course, the dynamics of the political system, is that the dominant political parties were largely indifferent as the constitutional text did not have a great direct impact on them. Moreover, while the Mouvement du 20 Février had done very well in mobilizing the masses, most of the larger parties, perhaps with the exception of the Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires (USFP) and to some extent the Parti de la Justice et du Développement (PJD), which both had some ideological proximity, stood to gain very little in terms of increased vote share by backing the movement’s demands. That said, given that the Mouvement du 20 Février did not intend to apply for legalization as a political party and would also be quite unlikely to obtain a license before the next legislative elections (if at all), the movement’s capacity to mobilize the citizenry did not pose much

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of a threat to either of the two parties. Consequently, the larger parties were all likely to benefit much more from supporting the monarch in his endeavor to appease the protesters.25 Hence, key representatives of all of the larger parties, whether Islamist, socialist, liberal, or conservative, publicly declared their unwavering support for the draft constitution and urged voters to turn out en masse on polling day to endorse the project (Agence France-Presse 2011c; Ottaway 2011; Radio France Internationale 2011a; Westerhoff 2011a). Only a number of smaller parties, namely, the PADS, the PVD, the Congrès National Ittihadi (CNI), and the PSU, were in opposition to the draft constitution, which they felt was rushed and too similar to the constitution of 1996, not introducing fundamental changes that would pave the way for parliamentary democracy—a cause they had long been working for and that, with the apparent popularity of the Mouvement du 20 Février, suddenly seemed much more realistic (Bennani and Boudarham 2011b; Storm 2007).26 However, given the level of pressure applied by the makhzen, no party actually had the courage to advocate a “no” vote, leaving the PADS, the PVD, the CNI, and the PSU calling instead for a boycott of the constitutional referendum (Aswab 2011b; Bennani and Boudarham 2011b; el-Fatimi 2011). After all, due to the nature of the political system, even the smaller parties rely on patronage to gain access to power—in fact, even more so than the traditionally dominant as they are also dependent upon the acceptance as a junior coalition partner by the larger parties. With a party system so heavily fragmented,27 there are always potential junior coalition partners available. Hence, parties such as the PADS, the CNI, and the PSU found themselves in a precarious situation where, on the one hand, they had to take a stance to retain their voters in order to stay in parliament after the upcoming legislative elections, while on the other hand, they had to avoid alienating the larger parties and losing their coalition potential.28

The Arab Spring and the Legislative Elections of 2011–2012: Any Signs of Change? If judged on the basis of the behavior of the political parties during the process of drafting and adopting the constitution of 2011, access to patronage remained their primary concern, regardless of the Arab Spring protests’ spreading to the country and scores of angry citizens demanding political reform, their dissatisfied voices directed largely at key politicians and the political parties, rather than the head of state. Yet, while the political parties, especially the larger ones, appeared to remain staunchly office-seeking, a modicum of opposition to the directives of the executive monarchy was voiced during the negotiations surrounding the bringing forward of the leg-

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islative elections. In contrast to the new constitution, which was essentially a case of cosmetic surgery that did not profoundly alter the workings of the executive monarchy, the changing of the date of the upcoming legislative elections impacted directly upon the political parties. Hence, the interest taken by each of the larger parties in ensuring that the date of the elections would be favorable, thereby maximizing their likelihood of success at the polls, indicated initially a slight (but ultimately insignificant) shift in a voteseeking direction by several of the parties in the wake of the eruption of the Arab Spring. The Mouvement du 20 Février did not, in other words, succeed in making the political parties more democratic in the sense of transforming them into genuine vehicles for citizen representation; the parties remained officeseeking, patronage parties. Moreover, although the movement arguably paved the way for the 2011 constitution, the amendments made were minor. The Mouvement du 20 Février was also not successful in toppling the elFassi government, which remained in place to some extent as a consequence of the moving forward of the election date, as this rejigging provided the dissatisfied electorate with the opportunity to bring into power a new government in the foreseeable future. Finally, while the Mouvement du 20 Février did achieve a certain victory in that it managed to severely weaken not only the PAM, but also Fouad Ali el-Himma, it did not succeed in ousting the makhzen from its central position within Moroccan politics. In all likelihood, a makhzen party such as the PAM, the RNI, or the MP, would be playing a significant role in the government formed in the wake of the first post–Arab Spring elections, just as a makhzen party always had done.29 Still the Era of Patronage Parties? The Post–Arab Spring Legislative Elections

Despite the objections voiced by the RNI and the PJD, the date for the legislative elections was finally confirmed by the minister of communication and government spokesperson, Khalid Naciri, as November 25, 2011.30 With a date set, the campaigning began in earnest. Reflecting the weak policy orientation of the political parties, the coverage of the campaign in the media did not focus on the programs of the parties, but rather on the various coalition possibilities. In short, the emphasis was on which of the parties would come out on top, which parties the winner was likely to want to form a coalition with, whether these parties would be interested, and the extent to which the monarchy would meddle with the composition of the cabinet by imposing technocrats as ministers.31 Moreover, for a number of reasons—most notably the formation of an anti-PJD electoral alliance, the Islamist victory in neighboring Tunisia, and the strong performance of the PJD in the 2007 elections—the first post–Arab Spring elections were

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largely about the PJD. Hence, the questions posed in the media with regard to the composition of the government focused on the agenda of the PJD, as well as the limits and opportunities afforded the PJD by the other parties and the monarchy. In contrast to the previous elections held in the alternance era, the 2011 elections constituted a choice between two clearly defined blocs, even though the PJD did its best to make it appear otherwise.32 In the past, the electorate had been presented with a choice of makhzen parties and parties originating from the independence movement, but while the latter formed a formal alliance (the Kutla), the makhzen parties had not entered into such a pact, and furthermore, governments tended to be oversized affairs, including coalition partners from across the political spectrum. At the time of the 2011 elections, however, the nature of electoral alliances changed as the makhzen parties and a number of smaller parties, including leftist and Islamist parties, came together in the incongruously named coalition pour la démocratie— better known as the G8. The G8 comprised the RNI, the PAM, the MP, and the UC from the makhzen camp; the leftist parties the Parti Socialiste (PS), the Parti de Gauche Verte (PGV), and the Parti Travailliste (PT); as well as the extremely conservative Islamist party, the Parti de la Renaissance et de la Vertu (PRV), making for a very mismatched alliance whose only shared goal was to prevent the PJD from gaining power (Harmach 2011b). Despite the fierce opposition the PJD faced from the G8 during the campaign period, the party did not join the Kutla (consisting of the Parti Istiqlal [PI], the USFP, and the Parti du Progrès et du Socialisme [PPS]), although the alliance had long been sending strong signals that the party would be very welcome. Rather, Abdelilah Benkirane declared that the PJD did not wish to make any electoral alliances until after the election results were known, thereby keeping its options open and keeping it better placed to respond to the voice of the electorate (Iraqi 2011). In reality, despite the grand words, which undoubtedly struck a chord with many voters, the PJD was not afforded much of a choice given the existence of the two electoral alliances, which encompassed all the other (sizeable) relevant parties. If the PJD won the elections, the party would have to enter into an alliance with the parties from either the G8, which seemed highly unlikely given the G8’s objective, or the Kutla, possibly with a defector from the G8 as some form of makhzen participation in the coalition was a given. Consequently, on polling day, the electorate was essentially presented with a choice between two blocs: the G8 or the Kutla plus the PJD. Forging a new government. Not surprisingly, given the fierceness of the campaign, it was impossible to guess who would win. Observers disagreed as to whether the G8 or the Kutla plus the PJD (the so-called opposition) would emerge victorious (Guisser 2011; Iraqi 2011). In the end, the G8 was

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convincingly defeated, largely due to the spectacular performance of the PJD, which won an astonishing 27.1 percent of the seats up for election— an increase of some 91 percent compared to the 2007 elections. There are those who would argue that the PJD did well due to an Islamist wave currently taking place in the Middle East and North Africa, with the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) gaining power in Turkey in 2002, the Ennahda winning the legislative elections in Tunisia only shortly before the Moroccan elections, and the Jamiat al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin (the Muslim Brotherhood) and the salafist party Hizb Al-Nūr (Party of Light) emerging from the 2011–2012 Egyptian elections as the strongest force.33 However, there is also no denying that the PJD fought the election campaign vigorously, the party had stronger roots in society than any of the other parties, and moreover the PJD fielded candidates in all but one of the ninety-two constituencies, something that cannot be said for most of its rivals, particularly within the makhzen (see Figure 4.1). As previously mentioned, one of the new provisions of the 2011 constitution was the stipulation that the prime minister should belong to the party emerging as the strongest force in the elections. However, as critics had pointed out already during the constitutional debate, it was not an explicit requirement that the prime minister had to be the party leader (Abou el Farah 2011c). Hence, in the wake of the PJD’s victory, speculations were rife as to whether Mohammed VI would use the opportunity to further ex-

Figure 4.1 Constituencies Contested, 2007–2011

Sources: Boukhari (2007); Abou el Farah (2011a); Libération (2011); the Moroccan Ministry of the Interior at http://www.maroc.ma/PortailInst/Fr/logoevenementiel/Dossier+Elections.htm.

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acerbate the cleavages within the PJD, which had been very pronounced since Benkirane’s takeover from Saad-Eddine el-Othmani at the heated party congress of July 2008 (Ansary 2008; Abou el Farah 2011c; Chabâa 2011). In the end, the king followed the unwritten rules and tasked Benkirane with forming a new government, and the monarchy even gave up some of its traditional ministries, leading to a somewhat less technocratic cabinet than in the past.34 In fact, although the new government followed the tradition of being oversized, it was markedly smaller than its predecessors, and it was also somewhat more ideologically coherent if one takes into account the weight of the parties included—the PJD, the PI, the MP, and the PPS. With regard to the size of the new governing coalition, it would have been possible to exclude the PPS, without which the government would still have had a parliamentary majority, albeit only a very slight one at 50.4 percent. Hence, the decision to include the party was perhaps not such a bad idea, as it made room for maneuvering; without the inclusion of the PPS, the defection of just two parliamentarians—in a country where such moves are rife35—would bring the government tumbling down.36 On the topic of cohesion, because the government that formed in the wake of the 2011 elections only included four parties, it was a rather more tight and rational outfit as compared to its antecedents in the alternance era. The PI and the PJD have always been ideologically proximate given their conservative character, and the MP has been located firmly just to the right of the center, enabling the party to fit in rather easily (La Vie Éco 2011; Abou el Farah 2011b). Moreover, as discussed in Chapter 3, like the PJD, the MP is a watered-down version of a makhzen party, being much less in the service of the monarchy than the other makhzen entities (the PAM, the RNI, and the UC).37 That said, there is no doubt that the decision to include the MP in the new government was primarily made by the monarchy, rather than the PJD.38 By ensuring makhzen representation in the cabinet, in addition to the alwayspresent technocrats, the monarchy could rest assured that even a government headed by Islamists would not prove too rebellious. In other words, as also mentioned in Chapter 3, the inclusion of a trustworthy makhzen party was always expected, it was just a question of which makhzen party it would be. Taking into account the uncompromising stance of the RNI and the PAM during the campaign period, and the poor performance of the UC, there were hardly any other suitable candidates for the job.39 Party change. The response by the various parties to the 2011 elections, as well as their behavior during the campaign period, indicates that there was quite some movement, although in most cases the parties did not significantly change their outlook. The PJD, the winner of the elections, fought for the same proportion of constituencies in 2007, namely, 98.9 percent, thereby continuing to under-

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line the party’s emphasis on vote-seeking and good societal links. Nonetheless, there is no denying that the party remained more office-seeking than vote-seeking as it downplayed the significance of religion in policymaking in order not to alienate voters or agitate the monarchy and potential coalition partners. Moreover, following the party’s victory in the elections, the PJD did by no means strongly object to the inclusion of any uneasy (or uncooperative) partners in the government. In the wake of the Islamist victory, the PI willingly abandoned its old coalition partner and ally in the Kutla alliance and entered the new government. While this move underlines the office-seeking nature of the PI, it made sense from an ideological perspective as the two parties are much more proximate than the PI and the USFP. With regard to the USFP, the PI’s old ally in the fraught partnership that lasted most of the années de plomb and continued after Mohammed VI’s takeover, the party politely declined the invitation to join the government. According to party leader Abdelouahed Radi, the USFP decided to take a seat among the opposition, despite the PI’s and the PPS’s both accepting cabinet portfolios, because the USFP could not envision itself in government as it had not won the elections, nor was it able to reach a parliamentary majority with its traditional allies (Radio France Internationale 2011b; Salaheddine 2011). In reality, a further reason was undoubtedly that the USFP would be a very minor actor in the new government, outflanked by both the PI and the PJD, the latter of which the party had very little in common with, and perhaps also by the makhzen MP. Given the popular anti-makhzen sentiment and the aversion to the PI’s el-Fassi clan, the decision to take up a seat in the opposition was perhaps a wise one, as the move made the USFP come across as decidedly more policy-oriented than it had been in years. Party change was more pronounced for the makhzen entities. While the UC remained firmly in place, showing no sign of a desire for political innovation despite the fact that the political context has clearly changed since the UC first emerged on the scene, the PAM and the RNI responded to the new political environment by moving in a more vote-seeking direction as the parties aimed to increase their number of deputies. The PAM did this by presenting candidates in 88.0 percent of the constituencies (see Figure 4.1), increasing its coverage markedly compared to the 2007 elections, where it competed as a list of independents with a very limited outlook and hardly any effort to appeal to the electorate in general, but rather to the local population in the area it ran (Zaki 2009: 25–26; Bendella 2009). The RNI, on the other hand, decreased the number of constituencies in which it fielded candidates, undoubtedly to waste fewer resources, but it fought the constituencies, which it contested, much more aggressively than it had done in the past. Given the fact that the RNI cut the number of candidates it fielded, one could argue that the party had remained office-seeking even in the

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wake of the Arab Spring. However, the reality that the RNI was not only a founding member, but also one of the key forces within the G8, meant that the party had consciously alienated its main political rival. Salaheddine Mezouar, the RNI’s new leader, was very well aware that the move meant that the party would find it exceedingly difficult to enter into a governing coalition should it lose the elections, which it did not, of course, anticipate would happen (Agoumi 2011; Aswab 2011d; Badrane 2012).40 Hence, it seems fair to say that as of the first post–Arab Spring elections, the RNI had become a vote-seeking party, but a failed one, as the RNI only succeeded in obtaining 13.2 percent of the seats compared to the PJD’s 27.1 and the PI’s 15.2 percent. In summary, although the parties had undergone some change during the five years between the legislative elections of 2007 and the first post– Arab Spring elections, they all remained patronage parties. Indeed, there was movement of parties between categories (from office-seeking to voteseeking and from vote-seeking to office-seeking), but that did not alter the fact that the driving force behind all parties—regardless of whether stemming from the independence movement, makhzen parties, or so-called unaffiliated parties—was the desire to maximize power, and in a system where power is largely arrived at by currying favor with the head of state, these parties naturally remained patronage parties. Even the USFP, despite its leftist credentials and apparent move toward a catch-all status, continued to be a patronage party: ready to distance itself from its former coalition partners, but unwilling to upset the system and therefore uncritical of the monarchy and its initiatives.

Political Parties, Party System Institutionalization, and the Arab Spring: The Prospects for Democracy in Morocco Demonstrations against the country’s politicians, accusing them of being corrupt and uninterested in solving the problems facing large segments of the country’s population, most notably unemployment, were already the order of the day in Rabat prior to the Arab Spring. Protests also frequently took place in other parts of the country, particularly in the Berber-speaking areas and in the financial capital of Casablanca. The Arab Spring brought together these individuals, along with a number of more established movements, under the umbrella of the Mouvement du 20 Février. As the previous analysis has sought to highlight, despite being a sizeable force in terms of numbers, the Mouvement du 20 Février has so far been largely unsuccessful. Although it succeeded in putting such pressure on the monarchy that the constitution was revised and the legislative elections originally scheduled for 2012 were moved forward to 2011, the significance of these devel-

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opments was negligible; the constitution effectively institutionalized the status quo, as only minor amendments benefiting the political parties and parliamentarians were introduced, and the 2011 elections resulted in the formation of a government that encompassed parties that had all been coopted by the regime several years ago. The Arab Spring and the Issue of Party System Institutionalization

While the indicators of party system institutionalization point in different directions—some suggesting that the Moroccan party system became less institutionalized in the wake of the Arab Spring41 and others seeming to indicate that the system had indeed become even more consolidated—my view is that the first post–Arab Spring legislative elections allude to further party system institutionalization. This conclusion has been reached not so much because of the legitimacy indicators, which remained positive: international observers deemed the 2011 elections to be free and fair (despite some elements of fraud, most notably vote-buying), the losers accepted their seats in parliament, and none of the major parties boycotted the 2011 elections (the only entities to not partake being the small far-left parties the PADS, the PSU, and the PVD) (Hari 2011b; Human Rights Watch 2011, 2012; Monjib 2011; Jirsa 2012).42 Rather, it is the electoral volatility indicators, the effective number of parties, the size of the new entries into the party system, and the abstention rate at the legislative elections (supported by that at the time of the constitutional referendum) that lead to this conclusion. This opinion that the party system remains institutionalized and the executive monarchy reinforced is undoubtedly controversial given that the Pedersen index of electoral volatility increased from 22 for the previous electoral period to 26 for the electoral period of 2007–2011, despite a fall in the number of relevant parties from twenty-one in 2007 to eighteen in 2011. Increased electoral volatility, of course, generally indicates less institutionalization. However, if one considers the seat share of the six traditionally dominant parties, that is, the parties effectively governing the country in the postindependence era, the picture is very different. The seat share of these parties continued to grow, increasing from 73.3 percent in 2007 to 79.3 percent following the 2011 elections, and if one includes the PAM, which became a force following the 2007 elections, the share is even higher—91.2 percent. In other words, while new parties entered the system and other parties exited, the majority of these were small entities and therefore do not make a real difference to how politics is conducted. To give an illustration, in addition to the PAM, which did not become a formal political party until 2008, the only other relevant parties to enter the party system were the PGV

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and the Parti de l’Unité et de la Démocratie (PUD), which were so small that their so-called relevance is rather theoretical as each party only managed to secure 0.3 percent of the seats up for renewal.43 Hence, while these parties contributed some to electoral volatility, their contribution was minute. The real explanation for the increased level of volatility was, in addition to the entry of the PAM, the existence of volatility among the six traditionally dominant parties, as was also frequently the case in the past. Electoral volatility among the traditionally dominant six was no less than 11.9, and if one includes the PAM in the figure, the Pedersen index grows further to 17.8. Moreover, together the traditionally dominant six parties plus the PAM, which was accurately predicted to become a major force due to its close relationship with the monarchy, accounted for 70.9 percent of total electoral volatility. Further supporting the interpretation that the party system remained highly institutionalized is the reality that the effective number of parties decreased significantly from 10.3 four years previously to a more respectable 6.7, signifying the cementation of the status of the traditionally dominant parties. Moreover, public support for the democratic process that is elections strengthened. Despite the very limited political reforms introduced, the abstention rate fell from 62.7 percent in 2007 to 54.5 percent at the time of the legislative elections of 2011 (see Figure 3.1).44 The Likelihood of Further Gains

That the party system remained well institutionalized even after the Arab Spring and the workings of the executive monarchy remained much the same cannot, of course, be blamed solely on the failure of the Mouvement du 20 Février to mobilize the masses enough to pose a serious threat to the political parties and the head of state. The potential democratic moment that was the Arab Spring was primarily wasted because there was a lack of readiness among the political elite to reform. The leaders of the traditionally dominant parties demonstrated the extent of their co-optation by the regime, as well as their continued patronage character, by proving unwilling to steer their parties in a more democratic—that is, popularly rooted—direction. As discussed in this chapter, none of the six traditionally dominant parties, nor the more recently influential PAM, joined the Mouvement du 20 Février, gathering instead behind Mohammed VI and his toothless political reforms that would further institutionalize the executive monarchy. Moreover, at the time of the legislative elections, even the substitutions of leadership that some of these parties made were effectively the replacement of one familiar face with another. Hence, the majority of the larger parties presented the same old names at the top of their lists, although there was considerable renewal further down as 87.6 percent of the candidates contested legislative elections for the first time (Forum Civil Démocratique Marocain 2011).45

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In addition to the disappointment of the traditionally dominant parties, regardless of their origins, cementing their position as regime vehicles, it was equally regrettable to see that none of the key figures in the country’s political elite who publicly argued for political change had the courage and ambition to form a new political party with the objective of channeling the demands of the protesters. This could have been a genuine political party, and an opposition party to boot. Particularly disheartening was the decision early on in the process by the key personalities within the Mouvement du 20 Février to not transform into a political party, a reality that not only weakened the movement’s cause in that it made it less of an impressive force to reckon with, but also because it showcased the activists’ lack of long-term commitment to the country’s democratization process.46 Furthermore, politicians formally belonging to the established political parties who were penalized politically for supporting the demands of the Mouvement du 20 Février, such as the PJD’s Mustapha Ramid, also disappointed. In a country where political parties are usually created as a consequence of fissions, as discussed extensively in Chapter 3, why did Ramid, a hugely popular figure with an extensive political network who had publicly referred to the Arab Spring protests as historiques, not demonstrate his commitment to this potential democratic moment by forming a party that could act as a vehicle for its continuation and success? Given Ramid’s appointment to the position of minister of justice and liberties following the 2011 elections, the only possible answer to this question must be Ramid’s lack of commitment to the Mouvement du 20 Février and its cause, as well as a desire to hold office.47 Is the Arab Spring Over?

With the adoption of a new constitution very similar to its predecessor, the holding of legislative elections that did not produce remarkable results, the executive monarchy very much intact, and the support for the Mouvement du 20 Février dwindling, is the Arab Spring over in Morocco? And has an “Arab Winter” taken hold in its place?48 Based on the analysis of the development of the party system in the postindependence era, as well as the behavior of the political parties and the political elite—including the monarch—during the Arab Spring (that is, from its eruption in early 2011 until shortly after the formation of the government following the legislative elections of November 25 that same year), the Arab Spring does, indeed, seem to be over in Morocco. As many supporters of the Mouvement du 20 Février have now moved on, and with al-Adl wal-Ihsan leaving the movement after the proclamation of the Benkirane cabinet, it is difficult to imagine the political parties and other members of the elite transforming into either genuine reformers or moderates, the two sets of actors necessary for pacted regime change. Why would they feel inclined to do so now, when

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they did not at the time when the pressure on them peaked? It seems an unlikely scenario. Moreover, adding further to the bleak perspectives for genuine regime change in Morocco, it is hard to envisage the emergence of yet another potential democratic moment in the near future, especially of the same caliber as the Arab Spring protests. That said, an Arab Winter certainly does not appear to be on the cards either. Given the reality that the PJD springs from the makhzen branch of parties, and taking into account that the party has moderated significantly over the years and has become just as co-opted by the regime as, for example, the USFP and the PI, there is no need to fear a hidden agenda and Morocco’s becoming further authoritarian. The most probable scenario for the immediate future is that the regime will remain authoritarian and continue to operate as it has done so far, the only difference being that the present government is headed by an Islamist party, rather than a conservative, liberal, or socialist entity. Hence, the worry that the PJD’s election victory and Benkirane’s subsequent appointment as the country’s prime minister are going to push Morocco in the direction of a theocracy seems rather unfounded. The workings of the executive monarchy remain the same; real power remains at the hands of the monarch, who emerged from the Arab Spring significantly strengthened—this is where the real threat to the future of democracy lies.

Notes 1. There is no doubt that the demonstrations were attended by a large number of protesters, but it is impossible to verify their actual size as the figures released by the organizers vary considerably from those made public by the regime (Akalay et al. 2011; Akdim et al. 2011d). 2. From a wealthy, prominent political family. Also accused of large-scale corruption. 3. The king’s close friend and effective leader of the PAM. 4. Another close friend of the king and manager of the Société Nationale d’Investissement (SNI), a $2 billion investment fund controlled by Mohammed VI. 5. A former radical leftist, now closely associated with the PAM. 6. Another affluent political dynasty. 7. The initial demands were as follows: the adoption of a democratic constitution expressing popular sovereignty; the dissolution of parliament; the dismissal of the incumbent government; the establishment of a transitional administration tasked with initiating reforms; the creation of an independent judiciary; the enforcement of a strict separation of powers; the trial of all individuals involved in corruption; the recognition of Tamazigh as an official language besides the Arabic language; the release of all political prisoners; the trial of all those responsible for arbitrary arrests, torture, and “disappearances”; and the provision of a better quality of (and access to) social welfare services. Please refer to the POMED press pack for more information: pomed.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/.../Press_Kit_June2011.pdf.

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8. Dalmasso (2012) reaches a similar conclusion. 9. Hibou (2011b: 9) makes a similar assessment of the situation. 10. It should be noted that demonstrations are still held on a regular basis by the Mouvement du 20 Février, but these have largely lost their momentum, not only in terms of size, but also with regard to popular support. Protests, some of them of a violent nature, have also been staged by groups of individuals in the wake of the Arab Spring, but while the demonstrators claim that their protests are Arab Spring related, in reality, the issues predate the Arab Spring (such as graduate unemployment and dissatisfaction among the amazigh). With their rather uncompromising demands, most notably the provision of public sector jobs to unemployed graduates, the public support for these is very limited indeed. 11. The “classic” definition of social movements by della Porta and Diani (1999: 16) has been adopted here. Hence, social movements are viewed as “(1) informal networks, based (2) on shared beliefs and solidarity, which mobilize about (3) conflictual issues, through (4) the frequent use of various forms of protest.” 12. See also the press pack put together by POMED on the Mouvement du 20 Février at pomed.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/.../Press_Kit_June2011.pdf (accessed September 6, 2011). It is worth noting that the movement had a significant presence, and therefore important local committees, in cities such as Tangier, Marrakech, Laâyoune, Agadir, Fès, and al-Hoceïma (Akdim et al. 2011d). 13. The leftist faction included political parties, namely, the Parti de l’Avant Garde Démocratique Socialiste (PADS), the Parti Socialiste Unifié (PSU), the Annahj Addimocrati (PVD), and to some extent the Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires (USFP), as well as the human rights movement the Association Marocaine des Droits Humains (AMDH), many of whose members spent time in prison during the anneés de plomb under the reign of Hassan II. Interestingly, the successor to the country’s communist party, the Parti du Progrès et du Socialisme (PPS), toed a regime-friendly line and opposed the activities of the Mouvement du 20 Février, arguing that it was essentially a radical outfit and that “il y a d’autres canaux pour se faire entendre que la rue” (Mrabet et al. 2011). The salafists, as already stated, were mainly members or supporters of Shaikh Yassine’s social movement al-Adl walIhsan, while the amazigh faction consisted of a number of smaller groupings, among them the Congrès Mondial Amazigh, Option Amazigh, Organisation de la Jeunesse Amazighe, and the Front Amazigh Unifié 20 Février. 14. For the full text of Mohammed VI’s speech on March 9, 2011, please refer to http://www.rue89.com/2011/03/10/discours-du-roi-mohammed-vi-du-maroc-le -texte-integral-194270 (accessed September 15, 2011). 15. These statements were very much in line with what was expected from Mohammed VI’s speech (Le Monde with AFP 2011a). 16. For equally pessimistic interpretations, see Belal (2011) and Tazi (2011). Youssef Belal is a member of the PPS politburo, while Karim Tazi is a well-known businessman and supporter of the Mouvement du 20 Février. See also Benchemsi (2011); Bennani, Boudarham, and Iraqi (2011); and Ottaway (2011). More optimistic in their view of the king’s speech were the French academic Jean-Nöel Ferrié and Abdelouahed Radi, a member of the USFP politburo (Sallon 2011). 17. According to the minister of the interior, Taieb Cherkaoui, the participation rate was 72.65 percent. However, as 9,228,020 votes were cast, and the number of eligible voters came to 13,106,948, the figure should be slightly lower at 70.4 percent (Maghreb Arab Presse 2011b). 18. It is worth noting that the share of invalid votes cast was incredibly low by Moroccan standards at only 0.83 percent (Maghreb Arab Presse 2011b).

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19. The Mouvement du 20 Février remained strong in the north of the country, particularly in Tangier and al-Hoceïma (Akalay 2011a; Hari 2011a; Rivière 2011). 20. This was, of course, largely expected, particularly given that the chief architect of the new constitution was Mohamed Moâtassim, a close ally of the monarchy for decades, but hidden away behind the scenes until now (Akalay 2011b; Bennani and Boudarham 2011a; Hibou 2011b: 9–11). 21. For a scathing critique of the new constitution, see Benchemsi (2012). 22. See, in particular, articles 70–86 of the Moroccan constitution of 2011 (Royaume du Maroc 2011). 23. In the past, the king has often ignored the prime minister’s suggestions (Boukhars 2011: 50, 56, 58). 24. Please refer to the discussion below. 25. Ottaway (2011) concurs with this assessment of the larger parties. Do note that the USFP attracted at least one central figure with political ambitions from the Mouvement du 20 Février. In mid-August 2011 it was made public that Oussama elKhlifi, the “Che of Salé,” would run in the elections under the USFP banner. Contesting the district, one of el-Khlifi’s main competitors was Abdelilah Benkirane, the leader of the PJD (Westerhoff 2011b). See also http://www.bladi.net/oussama-el -khlifi-usfp.html (accessed September 21, 2011). It is worth noting that the Mouvement du 20 Février was generally quite critical of the PJD, which Najib Chaouki, one of the central figures, claimed had not supported the movement at all. Rather, the participation in demonstrations by PJD members such as Lahbib Choubani and Abdelali Hamieddine, as well as the PJD’s enfant terrible Mustapha Ramid, was done on their own initiative (Hebert 2011). Given Benkirane’s hostility toward the movement’s activities, this was undoubtedly true (Akdim et al. 2011b, 2011c; Mrabet et al. 2011). 26. The PSU, furthermore, declined to take part in any of the consultations with the committee tasked with revising the constitution on the grounds that the party objected to the working methods of this ad hoc institution. The Mouvement du 20 Février similarly declined (Bennani and Boudarham 2011b). 27. The 2007 elections saw fifteen parties gain entry in addition to the Mouvement Populaire (MP), the PI, the PJD, the Rassemblement National des Indépendants (RNI), the Union Constitutionnelle (UC), and the USFP. 28. The PVD boycotted the 2011 elections as it was not satisfied with the political reforms introduced in the wake of the Arab Spring. The party also boycotted previous legislative elections on the grounds that they were not democratic. For more information, please refer to the party’s website http://www.annahjaddimocrati.org and La Voie Démocratique (2011). 29. Although the 2011 elections will be discussed in greater detail later in this chapter, it is worth mentioning here that the PAM survived, el-Himma remained an influential political figure, and el-Fassi’s PI is part of the governing coalition formed in the wake of the 2011 elections. With regard to the makhzen parties, the MP entered the government, while the RNI and the PAM are now located in the opposition. 30. The larger parties quickly announced their support for revising the constitution, but there were concerns raised with regard to the date of the legislative elections. The RNI and the PJD were both concerned that the November date was too close to the religious festival of Eid al-Adha, meaning that voters might be on holiday, and the RNI was also keen that the elections would not coincide with the vote on the new budget, which the party was in charge of. Finally, both parties argued that the electorate needed more time to familiarize itself with the new constitution. That said, the RNI and the PJD both came across as if they were mainly concerned with

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their core voters not turning out on polling day—not so much with the welfare of the electorate. See Jâabouk (2011a); Ali (2011); Maghreb Arab Presse (2011a); Agence France-Presse (2011a, 2011b); Aswab (2011a); Soares (2011); Harmach (2011a); Michbal (2011); Le Soir Echos (2011a); Addam (2011); Maroc Hebdo (2011). 31. For an excellent article discussing potential coalition scenarios, please see La Vie Éco (2011) or Abou el Farah (2011b). 32. This reality is a beautiful example of how the monarchy eventually gets its way. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, in the period between the holding of the 2002 and 2007 legislative elections, Mohammed VI expressed his desire to see a Moroccan party system that consisted of two or three clearly defined political blocks, preferably two, as this would result in the creation of sharper lines in parliament, and a more coherent opposition as well as government. The political parties themselves were very much against this idea at the time. For more on this issue, please refer to Storm (2007). 33. Note that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood ran via the Hizb Al-Hurriya wa Al-’Adala (Freedom and Justice Party), which it established in the run-up to the elections. 34. The PJD took twelve cabinet portfolios, six went to the PI, four each to the PPS and the MP, while five went to technocrats. 35. The best example of such defections is perhaps the veritable flocking of parliamentarians to the PAM following the legislative elections of 2007 and the party’s subsequent formation in 2008. 36. From the perspective of the PPS, it ought to have been less of an attractive proposition, yet only 53 out of some 700 members of the party’s central committee voted against the venture (Jâabouk 2011b). While the party gained access to power, the move will undoubtedly see the party lose a significant proportion of its supporters in the future as it cannot possibly be taken seriously as a socialist force. Even the reality that the PPS was the PI’s ally within the Kutla for several years cannot adequately explain the party’s move to its supporters. After all, the PPS was always much more proximate to the USFP. 37. The MP was admittedly a member of the anti-PJD electoral alliance. That said, the party would have found it extremely difficult not to join the G8 as it comprised all the other makhzen parties and was effectively set up at the request of the monarchy (Harmach 2011b). 38. One could, of course, argue that the PJD did not have much choice as the party needed an additional coalition partner to the PI and the PPS in order to reach a parliamentary majority. Had the MP not been on the cards, the USFP would probably have participated—from the latter party’s perspective, the inclusion in an uneasy cabinet ought to have been preferable to the formation of a makhzen cabinet, which would have been the reality had Benkirane not been able to put together a team. 39. It is worth noting that not everyone within the MP was delighted with the party’s joining the governing coalition (Mouhsine 2011). 40. The same is true of the PAM, which, as mentioned earlier, played an equally important role within the G8. Benkirane had very clearly stated that the PJD was willing to include all the parties in the coalition talks, that is, apart from the PAM. Hence, the RNI was welcome, but the party chose to take up a position within the opposition, while the PAM never even entertained the idea, refusing from the outset to be part of a coalition that included the PJD—this constituted a so-called red line, which would not be overstepped (Agoumi 2011; Aswab 2011d; Chabâa 2011; Le Soir Echos 2011b).

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41. For instance, the average age of parties winning in excess of 10 percent of the seats up for renewal fell, but this was expected given the entry of the PAM into the party system. 42. It is worth noting that in Morocco, the authorities are now pursuing a case against those activists who advocated a boycott of the legislative elections (Human Rights Watch 2011, 2012). This is a rather worrying development considering that boycotting the elections was not an illegal act. 43. The Parti al-Ahd Addimocrati (PAD) and the Parti de l’Environnement et du Développement Durable (PEDD) are not counted as new entities as their name change was only a formality—the two parties had to change their name following their exit from the PAM in 2008, but could not return to their original names (Parti al-Ahd [PAA] and Parti de l’Environnement et du Développement [PED]) as these had ceased to exist. 44. It should be noted, however, that although the level of abstention fell markedly, it still remained higher than in all elections held prior to 2007 (see Figure 3.1). 45. It is also worth highlighting that 30.2 percent of the candidates were less than forty-five years old, and that 46.4 percent had completed higher education (Forum Civil Démocratique Marocain 2011: 6–7). 46. Hibou (2011b) has a similar opinion. 47. One could, of course, also argue that Ramid simply decided to try to change the regime from within. However, this scenario seems rather implausible—and unwise—given how many party leaders have attempted this unsuccessfully in the past. The most notable example is perhaps the former leader of the USFP, Abderrahmane el-Youssoufi. For more on this, see Storm (2007). 48. The term “Arab Winter” surfaced in the Western media as Islamists emerged as the strongest force in the wake of the Arab Spring, not only in Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt, where Islamists went on to win the legislative elections, but also in Libya, for example, where unelected Islamists dominated the political scene after the overthrow of the Muammar Qaddafi regime. See, among others, Byman (2011) and Kuhner (2011). The reality that the National Democratic Institute held a symposium on “The Arab Winter and the Effect on International Development” on February 17, 2012, demonstrates how the Arab Winter is not only a term reserved for right-wing contributors to the press. In France, the term used to express the fear of Islamist prominence following the Arab Spring is, perhaps more accurately, l’hiver islamiste (Barbier 2011). Badie (2012) defines l’hiver islamiste somewhat differently—that is, as the freezing (persistence) of authoritarianism, even if in a reworked form, in most of the Arab countries. For more on the Islamist Winter, please refer to Chapter 9.

5 Party Politics in Tunisia Before the Jasmine Revolution

Prior to the Jasmine Revolution the Tunisian party system appeared so highly institutionalized that very few people expected any significant changes to occur in the near future. Zine El Abidine Ben Ali seemed to sit firmly in the saddle; with the army so weak, the police part of the regime, no legal opposition to speak of, and, furthermore, the genuine opposition heavily repressed, where was the challenge going to come from? Even though the system was not afforded much legitimacy, neither by the political parties nor by the electorate, the idea of a revolution sparked by civil society was not a vision entertained by many, but that was, of course, exactly what happened. Taking into account the reality that the party system has changed considerably and that the dynamics of the political system are now very different from how they were before the Jasmine Revolution, one might ask why I have found it necessary to dedicate an entire chapter to the evolution of party politics prior to 2011. The answer is that this is a necessary yardstick for evaluating the developments that have taken place recently. Hence, I begin the discussion below with an assessment of party system institutionalization, moving on to an analysis of the character and development of the relevant political parties, before ending with an examination of the dynamics of the wider political system pre-2011.

Party System Institutionalization The institutionalization of a party system reflects its stability. In cases of party systems in democratic regimes, low electoral volatility and mature political parties tend to be a consequence of the parties’ having established 85

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stable roots in society. In the case of nondemocratic regimes, such as the three Maghrebi cases discussed in this book, party system institutionalization generally does not reflect, to any great extent, the relationship between the political parties and the electorate, but between the parties and the regime. In short, the dynamics that foster the stability of the party system are far from democratic. Party Competition

Unlike the Moroccan case, in which extreme levels of party competition have been the order of the day, Tunisia experienced no volatility for the first eight legislative elections following independence (see Table 5.1). And then, with the very tentative opening up of the political system in the 1990s, the country’s party system suddenly became volatile, albeit only trivially so if judged by Moroccan standards. Party systems: Hegemony and the single party, 1956–1994. As demon-

strated not only by the volatility score, but also by the effective number of parties, the citizenry was, to all intents and purposes, left with only one party to act as their representative during the years 1956–1994. Yet, despite the reality that a single party dominated politics, the party system took somewhat different forms over the years.

Table 5.1 Party Competition, 1956–2009 Electoral Period — 1956–1959 1959–1964 1964–1969 1969–1974 1974–1979 1979–1981 1981–1986 1986–1989 1989–1994 1994–1999 1999–2004 2004–2009

Electoral Volatility (seats)

Election Year

Effective Number of Parties (seats)

Party System Classification

— 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 11.7 7.0 2.2 6.1

1956 1959 1964 1969 1974 1979 1981 1986 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1.3 1.5 1.5 1.7

Hegemonic

Source: See Appendix B.

Single-party system

Hegemonic

Hegemonic (tentative move toward predominance)

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In the two electoral periods from 1956 until 1964, the party system could best be characterized as hegemonic as more than one political party was allowed to exist, although genuine competition and the possibility of alternation of power was in actual fact ruled out.1 In other words, the reason why only one party managed to secure seats in parliament was not due to the lack of legal opposition forces. Rather, to ensure the survival of the regime and complete control of the political arena, President Habib Bourguiba oversaw the passing of an election code2 and similar measures that effectively guaranteed the governing party, the Néo-Destour, not only an election victory, but all the seats up for renewal (Braun 2006: 22). Following an aborted coup d’état in 1962 by dissidents within the NéoDestour and dissatisfied members of the army, Bourguiba began to strengthen his own powers in order to remain in control (Camau and Geisser 2003: 183–189). Among the initiatives introduced in the wake of the failed coup were the restructuring of the Néo-Destour and the prohibition of all other political parties in 1963. Gone was the nominal opposition previously present; Tunisia had become a single party state (Braun 2006: 24). Yet, notwithstanding the blatantly undemocratic nature of the political system, Bourguiba still insisted on the holding of legislative and presidential elections.3 Hence, when voters went to the polls again in 1964, they were presented with a narrow list of candidates selected by Bourguiba and his inner circle, which had become even smaller following the infamous party conference of 1964 that saw the transformation of the Néo-Destour into the Parti Socialiste Destourien (PSD). The single-party system persisted until 1981, when competitive elections were reinstated (albeit in a severely restricted form). The PSD leadership was attempting to cling to power and restore peace in the wake of the 1978 general strike and the subsequent riots that led to the jeudi noir, during which hundreds of Tunisians were shot by their own security forces, and the so-called Gafsa revolt of 1980, when army rebels supported by Libya declared their intention to overthrow Bourguiba’s regime (ben Dhiaf 1982: 583–584; Camau and Geisser 2003). The fact that opposition parties were permitted to contest the legislative elections of 1981 did not, by any means, imply that they would gain access to power. As was the case at the time of the elections of 1956 and 1959, the opposition was awarded no seats for its efforts due to the nature of the election code. With a simple majority system in place, the opposition forces, namely, the Parti Communiste Tunisien (PCT), the Mouvement Démocratique et Social (MDS), and the Mouvement d’Unité Populaire II (MUP II), stood no chance against the governing party and, as intended by Bourguiba, the PSD won all the seats, making for a return to the hegemonic party system in place during the 1950s and early 1960s (Braun 2006: 22–24).4

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In the two subsequent legislative elections, the governing party was also awarded all the seats in parliament. In 1986, it did not have to compete against any opposition forces (as these chose to boycott the poll), while in 1989, the opposition parties—the MDS, the Parti de l’Unité Populaire (PUP), the Parti Social pour le Progrès (PSP), and the Rassemblement Socialiste Progressiste (RSP)—were pressured by Ben Ali, the new president,5 into entering the Union Patriotique, the only force to partake in the elections.6 Membership in the Union Patriotique, of course, did not result in any tangible rewards as evidenced by the distribution of seats in parliament.7 As was the case with all the previous elections held in the postindependence era, the effective number of parties remained just one in 1989. The tentative opening: Predominance or still a case of hegemony?

Then, in 1993, spurred on by domestic and international pressure for democratization in the form of political pluralism, and in an effort to counterbalance the increasingly popular Islamists, Ben Ali orchestrated a revision of the election code. Among the new provisions was the stipulation that nineteen parliamentary seats would be reserved for the parties that did not succeed in having candidates elected in the twenty-five constituencies (i.e., the opposition) (Braun 2006: 42).8 For the first time since independence, Tunisians would be represented by more than one party. Due to the small number of seats reserved for the opposition, the opening up of the political system cannot be described as anything but extremely tentative or, in less forgiving terms, as mere window dressing. It was never the intention of Ben Ali to introduce reforms to such an extent that he would have to significantly relinquish power (Braun 2006: 43). Rather, the tentative opening was a façade, and Tunisia remained governed by a hegemonic party system. The small, gradual increase in dedicated opposition seats over the years, from 11.7 percent in 1994 to 24.8 percent in 2009, did not have any noteworthy impact on how politics was conducted in the country. As illustrated by the effective number of parties, one party continued to dominate the system, and while the figure for 2009 approached two, this reality did not imply that the small handful of opposition forces had anything but marginal political influence; neither the MDS, the Ettajdid, the PUP, the Union Démocratique Unioniste (UDU), the Parti Social Démocratique Libéral (PSDL), nor the Parti des Verts pour le Progrès (PVP) possessed blackmail potential.9 While some of these parties were at times members of the governing coalition, this was not due to the regime party—now operating under the name Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique (RCD)—needing their support to obtain a majority in parliament. Instead it was simply to give the illusion of democratic power-sharing.

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The Issues of Stable Roots and System Legitimacy

Given the nature of party competition, determining the extent to which the opposition parties had established stable roots in society is virtually impossible. The outcome of the various polls did not reflect the political parties’ popularity among the electorate, but rather a party’s willingness to play by the rules of the game. That said, the age indicators used by Kuenzi and Lambright (2001) as one component of their measure of party system institutionalization are not without merit in a Tunisian setting as they illustrate the extent to which the governing party succeeded in keeping the opposition parties in check, while also highlighting the fact that opposition parties did exist—and managed to persist—throughout the postindependence period (see Table 5.2), regardless of the party system’s being either hegemonic or an all-out single-party system. In addition to the Ettajdid, the country’s longest-standing opposition force, other parties with some longevity, albeit with varying degrees of opposition credentials, include the Parti Démocrate Progressiste (PDP), the Parti Social Libéral (PSL), the PUP, and the MDS.10 Of these, the MDS has proved to be the strongest by a long way (see Table 5.3).11 In all of the four legislative elections held prior to the Arab Spring in which the opposition was allocated seats, the MDS managed to come out as the chief force, a fact that reflected the reality that the party had established by far the strongest roots in society, although these remained feeble at the very best (Perkins 2004: 189, 195; Camau and Geisser 2003: 252).12 It is a widely held view that the MDS was the only entity capable of rivaling the governing party during the various electoral contests, had the results of these not been manipulated and the election code not engineered. As a consequence of the strong position of the ruling party, none of the opposition forces succeeded in carving out a significant role for themselves in national politics. Hence, according to most definitions, these parties would not qualify as “important” or “major.” However, given their status as

Table 5.2 Seats Held by Parties Formed Before 1970 (in percentage) Party RCD Ettajdid Combined seat share

Formation

1956–1989

1994

1999

2004

2009

1920 1937

100

88.3 2.5

81.3 2.7

80.4 1.6

75.2 0.9

100

90.5

84

82

76.1

Sources: See Appendix B and Figure 5.2.

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Table 5.3 Age of the Top Two Parties Party

Formation

1994

1999

2004

2009

RCD MDS

1920 1978

74 16

79 21

84 26

89 31

45

50

55

60

Average age

Sources: See Appendix B and Figure 5.2. Note: Age refers to number of years party has been in existence; top two parties are calculated by number of seats held.

potential alternatives to the regime party, no matter how weak, and the fact that they have survived in a highly repressive environment, the actions of these parties must be taken into account when analyzing Tunisian politics, including the issue of system legitimacy. Table 5.4 gives a quick overview of the state of system legitimacy during the period stretching from independence until the first post–Arab Spring elections. As discussed repeatedly throughout this chapter, legislative elections during the reigns of Bourguiba and Ben Ali were never free and fair given the reality that the opposition was either barred from participating in the elections or was severely restricted in its contestation. Consequently, it may appear somewhat surprising that not only did the opposition parties take up their seats in parliament when they were afforded any, they also largely refrained from boycotting the elections.13 Boycotts, abstention, and the nature of Tunisian politics. The fact that most legislative elections took place without so-called major parties boycotting these should not, however, be interpreted as the opposition’s endorsing the political system.14 Rather, reality is that it was impossible for the opposition forces to boycott the legislative elections held during the period 1964–1979, because their parties were prohibited. With regard to the elections held from 1994 onward, the situation was different. While elections were still far from free and fair, they constituted a considerable improvement. Hence, it is relatively easy to understand why the major opposition parties chose to participate: they stood the chance of winning seats and could run for the presidency, and, moreover, they had achieved very little when excluded from the electoral arena. Finally, it is worth keeping in mind that they also had hardly any room to maneuver when it came to voicing dissatisfaction if they intended to remain in operation and maintain some, if only marginal, access to power. Hence, the parties most fervently advocating a boycott have been the clandestine parties and those otherwise excluded—that is, the truly oppositional forces with nothing much to lose. In short, voices missing from the statistics.15

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Table 5.4 Legitimacy

Did any major party boycott the elections? Did the losers accept the results? Were the elections free and fair?a

Did any major party boycott the elections? Did the losers accept the results? Were the elections free and fair?a

1956

1959

1964

1969

1974

1979

1981

No

No

—

—

—

—

No

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

1986

1989

1994

1999

2004

2009

2011

MDS, PCT

PCT

No

No

PDP

No

No

—

—

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

No

Yes

Source: See Appendix B. Notes: The table refers to legislative elections only. a. The main determining factor being the existence of an electoral framework that ensured the survival of the hegemonic or single-party system.

The electorate, like the political parties, had few avenues for expressing its (dis)satisfaction with the regime given the heavily controlled nature of the elections. Yet, the abstention rate at election time does give some insight into the citizenry’s support for the political system—both the political parties and the regime—even if the figures have been manipulated, which is generally the case in nondemocratic regimes. As is apparent from Figure 5.1, the percentage of eligible voters choosing to stay at home on polling day fluctuated greatly in the postindependence period. Most notably, it is evident that high abstention rates were not only confined to the last years of the single-party system when political unrest peaked, but also after the introduction of nominal party competition in the early 1980s. Going into more detail, the abstention rates were very low prior to 1979, at the beginning undoubtedly because the right to hold elections had just been granted, making the whole experience a novelty, while the low abstention rates at the time of the 1964, 1969, and 1974 elections were to a certain extent due to the extremely repressive nature of the regime at the time. Following the episodes of civilian unrest in the late 1970s and the events at Gafsa in 1980, elevated levels of abstention were to be expected in the legislative elections of 1979 and 1981 as antiregime mobilization was clearly soaring, even despite the fact that 1981 saw the reintroduction of nominally competitive elections.

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Figure 5.1 Abstention Rates and Invalid Votes Cast in Legislative Elections, 1956–2011

Sources: Inter-Parliamentary Union (www.ipu.org); Martínez Fuentes and Montabes Pereira (2010: 207–211); Montabes Pereira (1999: 918); Agence Tunis Afrique Presse (2011b).

In 1986, the legislative elections were boycotted by the opposition parties in response to the violent crackdown by government forces on the khubzistes (bread riot protesters) and the repression of the political opposition in the wake of the civilian unrest (Braun 2006: 42; Montabes Pereira 1999: 919; Perkins 2004: 172–174). Given the atmosphere surrounding the elections, it was not surprising that the abstention rate remained high. The equally uncompetitive nature of the legislative elections of 1989, in which the opposition parties were essentially forced into competing under a united banner with the PSD following the signing of the pacte national, undoubtedly contributed to the peak in abstention (Daoud 1989: 682–684, 691; Martínez Fuentes and Montabes Pereira 2010: 207). It was clear to all voters that, although more than one party existed, only a single party would be awarded seats in parliament. Hence, the incentive to cast a ballot was quite poor. The extremely tentative opening up of the political system in 1994 saw the electorate reward the regime as the share of eligible voters who chose to boycott the elections dropped dramatically to a respectable 4.5 percent compared to the 23.5 percent who had abstained only a few years earlier in 1989. The initial euphoria of the prospects of power sharing soon turned to dissatisfaction, though, as it became evident that Ben Ali intended to follow in Bourguiba’s footsteps and maintain a tight grip on power. Consequently, as power was not shared with the opposition to any noteworthy extent, the electorate again abandoned the polls, and abstention rates continued to grow steadily as the reality that Tunisia was nothing but a so-called façade democracy seemed to hit home.

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The Formation and Evolution of the Party System Although the party system was far from vibrant given the restrictions imposed on the opposition parties prior to the Arab Spring, and while neither the electorate nor the political parties viewed the political system as legitimate due to the RCD’s monopoly on power, the party system was, without any doubt, highly institutionalized. But how did the party system develop? Without an understanding of when, how, and why the various components of the party system were formed and adapted over time, the data on party system institutionalization tell us very little about the dynamics of the party system and, therefore, also about the prospects for democracy in the wake of the fall of Ben Ali. Before proceeding with the analysis, it is worth noting that, as in the Moroccan case, one arrives at the most accurate categorization of the political parties by classifying these on the basis of their relationship with, and position toward, the regime. In the Tunisian case, this means examining the origins of the various parties as well as their orientation toward Bourguiba or Ben Ali. The Regime Party

Given the regime party status of the RCD, and therefore the party’s dominant position within both the party and the political system, the formation and development of the governing party seems a fitting place to begin this brief overview of the evolution of the relevant parties. The relevant parties are those that have managed to secure seats in parliament over the years and, taking into account the severely repressive nature of the political system, those that possessed significant blackmail potential at the time of the legislative elections of 2009, the last to be held prior to the Arab Spring. The RCD, which ceased to exist as a political party following Ben Ali’s ousting from power in 2011, first emerged in 1920 under the name the Destour. The Destour, although now frequently referred to as a political party due to its being a predecessor of the RCD, was not much of a party if one stresses the representative functions of these. The Destour essentially corresponded to Maurice Duverger’s cadre party, but with a very weak ideological foundation; it was nothing but a loosely organized collection of men from the Tunisian business and religious elites who shared the goal of introducing political reforms, albeit on a very modest scale (Braun 2006: 19– 20; Moore 1962: 461–462). Several of the younger members of the Destour soon grew more ambitious, however, and it did not take long before they began to rebel, advocating much more radical changes, most notably independence from France (Braun 2006: 20; Moore 1962: 461–462). The young Destourians, led by Habib Bourguiba, eventually split from the party in March 1934, when they established the Néo-Destour, the country’s first genuine political party. The Néo-Destour took the form of a mass party in

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that it recruited members from all regions of Tunisia and from all segments of society. Hence, in 1955, some ten years after its formation and only a year before its legalization, the Néo-Destour commanded 325,000 members. In other words, despite the party’s being prohibited, and its leaders imprisoned for most of the preindependence period, a third of all male Tunisians belonged to the Néo-Destour by the mid-1950s—a rather impressive feat (Braun 2006: 20; Erdle 2011: 56–58).16 In the wake of independence from France in 1956, the Néo-Destour was eventually legalized. However, the sudden changes to the political context led to profound divisions within the party. Salah Ben Youssef, another key party figure, disagreed strongly with the treaty signed with France in 1955 as not all the party’s requirements were met, and he was accordingly swiftly expelled from the Néo-Destour by Bourguiba and his loyal supporters within the main trade union, the Union Générale des Travailleurs Tunisiens (UGTT) (Braun 2006: 21; Moore 1962: 466).17 The Néo-Destour not only struggled internally with the contents of the independence agreement, but also with the fact that independence had been gained, as the party now had to reformulate its program and come up with a new shared agenda that would also appeal to its broad membership base. Therefore, nearly ten years were to pass before the remodeled party with somewhat stronger socialist credentials, the PSD, emerged in 1964 (Braun 2006: 21–22). While also plagued by internal conflict, the PSD managed to remain on the party scene until Ben Ali’s bloodless coup against Bourguiba on November 7, 1987, although the party was marred by a number of splits, as detailed in the following sections. Following Ben Ali’s takeover, the PSD was renamed the RCD, and the party leadership was given an extensive overhaul as Bourguiba’s supporters were purged from their posts. However, the general objectives of the party remained the same, namely, to keep the president and his party firmly in power (Braun 2006: 40–42).18 Opposition Forces: The Clients and the Clandestine Parties

Despite not much political space being afforded to any other parties than the regime vehicle, opposition parties have existed throughout the postindependence period. According to Chouikha (2004: 365), prior to the Arab Spring, the opposition (defined as those political parties, legal or clandestine, that were not the RCD) could be divided into three categories: (1) the legal, clientelistic opposition; (2) the legal opposition; and (3) the illegal opposition. Within the first and second categories, it was possible to distinguish between entities originating from the regime party and from the socalled unaffiliated parties, while with regard to the third category, the parties could be divided according to whether they were leftist or Islamist in orientation.

Figure 5.2 The Evolution of the Tunisian Party System 1956 elections Leftist “unaffiliated”

1986 elections

PCF (1920*) PCT (1956/1937*)

2009 elections

2011 elections

Ettajdid (1993) al-‘Âmal al-Tûnisi (1971*) Marxistes indépendants (1975*)

PCOT (2011/1986*) PSG (2011/2006*) RSP (1988/1983*) PDP (2001) MPD (2011) PLP (2011) CPR (2011/2001*)

Regime parties

Destour (1920*) Néo-Destour (1956/1934*)

PSD (1964)

MUP (1973*) MUP II (1983/1977*) MUP I (2011/1977*) PUP (1985) MDS (1983/1978*)

UDU (1988) RCD (1988)

FDTL (2002/1994*) PSP (1988/1983*) PSL (1993) PSDL (2005) PVP (2006/2005*)

Liberal “unaffiliated” Islamist “unaffiliated”

PNSD (2011) LI (2011) PLM (2011) AT (2011) Parti Néodestourien (2011)

UPL (2011) Jamâ’a al-Islamiyya fi Tûnis (1979*) MTI (1981*)

Ennahda (2011/1988*)

PP (2011)

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Notes: * indicates year of formation. The unstarred year is that of legalization. Abbreviations are defined in Appendix D.

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Regime vehicles—the legal, clientelistic opposition. Beginning with the

satellites of the regime, or what Chouikha terms clients, there were five of these at the time of the 2009 elections: the MDS, the PSDL, the PVP, the PUP, and the UDU.19 The first of these so-called satellite parties to emerge was the Mouvement d’Unité Populaire (MUP), which was created by the former union leader Ahmed Ben Salah in May 1973. The MUP’s emergence was the result of a long-running rift within the PSD between Bourguiba and Ben Salah, whom Bourguiba had come to view as a potential rival within the party as voices began to mount against his personalization of power and, to a certain extent, his visions of a one-party state (Braun 2006: 26; Camau and Geisser 2003: 177–179, 232–237). In 1970, after years of feuding within the PSD, Bourguiba eventually succeeded in having Ben Salah expelled from both the cabinet and the party. In the wake of his banishment, Ben Salah was also handed a severe prison sentence, which would have seen him eliminated from politics had he not managed to escape from prison in February 1973 (Braun 2006: 27). From his exile in neighboring Algeria, Ben Salah set up a party of his own (the MUP), a party that was never legalized given its leader’s strained relationship with the Tunisian president. Due to its personalistic character, the MUP (like most other parties) suffered from internal divisions, and the party eventually split into two in 1977. The MUP I, the original party, remained clandestine, whereas the breakaway faction headed by Belhaj Amor (the MUP II) was finally legalized in 1983 (Braun 2006: 27; Camau and Geisser 2003: 232). Two years later, in 1985, the MUP II was renamed the PUP in order to reflect the party’s new status (Braun 2006: 27–28; Camau and Geisser 2003: 235). The tensions within the PSD over Bourguiba’s leadership style and political vision resulted in the formation of a further opposition party only five years after the emergence of Ben Salah’s MUP. Ahmed Mestiri, former minister of the interior and a key figure within the PSD’s liberal wing, had already left the party in 1972 after a very public power struggle with Bourguiba (Braun 2006: 26–29; Camau and Geisser 2003: 179). However, it was not until 1978 that Mestiri proclaimed the birth of the MDS, which he argued would seek to establish the strong links with society that Bourguiba’s PSD had never even attempted to create due to its elitist nature (Camau and Geisser 2003: 232). It was to take a further five years, until 1983, before the MDS was eventually granted legal status following the tentative opening of 1981, which also, as mentioned above, saw the legalization of the PCT and the MUP II (Braun 2006: 27–29; Camau and Geisser 2003: 230–231). In the wake of the ruptures that led to the formation of the MUP and the MDS, the PSD stabilized insofar as no further splits took place during Bourguiba’s reign. It was not until 1988, after Ben Ali had come to power and the PSD had been transformed into the RCD, that the next fission took

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place. The UDU, as the new opposition force was called, was created by Abderrahmane Tlili, the son of the famous union leader, Ahmed Tlili, after his forced departure from the RCD central committee earlier that year. Right from the outset, it was clear that regardless of Tlili’s supposed fallout with Ben Ali, the UDU was not oppositional in any sense of the word, but was simply located within the opposition due to the fact that it was not the regime party.20 The UDU was strongly committed to ensuring the prevalence of status quo; the party had virtually no ties to the electorate and also had no interest in challenging the RCD. Rather, it vied for the regime party’s recognition in the form of patronage and was, hence, legalized only a few days after its inception (Camau and Geisser 2003: 233, 238; Ruedy 1996: 212).21 While all of the so-called satellites or clients of the regime examined so far emerged as a consequence of a regime party fission, the PSDL and the PVP stand out in that they were not the result of a split within the ruling party, but were created due to differences within the Parti Social Libéral (PSL), a party that was not rooted in the regime, but traced back to the Parti Social pour le Progrès (PSP). The PSP was established in 1983 by Mounir Béji, a former member of both the PSD and the MDS. It was not until 1988, however, that the party was afforded legal recognition by the new Ben Ali regime (Braun 2006: 40). Only a few years later, at the time of the congress of 1993, the decision was made to stress the supposedly liberal character of the party, and the PSP became the PSL. The PSL, as is common among personalistic parties, was marred by internal conflict.22 Hence, in 2005 the party split into two when Mongi Khamassi and his supporters left and set up the PVP.23 The PVP became the country’s first so-called green party, and one of the first of its kind in the region. Given the party’s weak ideological foundations and its extremely feeble roots in society, however, it is fair to say that the PVP was simply another addition to the family of personalistic parties and was only really “green” by name. The legal opposition. Compared to the clientelistic opposition, the socalled legal opposition prior to the Jasmine Revolution was minute as it only consisted of a single party, the Ettajdid.24 This reality did not, by any means, imply that the legal opposition was insignificant. Despite comprising only one party, and regardless of the fact that opposition parties were not afforded much political power in general, the Ettajdid was a key player in Tunisian politics, largely due to the party’s longevity and its less compromising stance vis-à-vis the regime. As discussed earlier, most (albeit not all) of the opposition parties could trace their origins back to the regime vehicle, a reality that makes the Ettajdid stand out somewhat from its competitors. The Ettajdid sprang from the PCF, which set up a branch in Tunisia in 1920. The party was not, in other

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words, externally created as it was established by seasoned politicians, but it was certainly unaffiliated with the Destour. While operating under the name the PCF, the party was essentially a European venture, but it slowly transformed, and by 1937 it had become a Tunisian party (under the name the Parti Communiste Tunisien [PCT]). Though not a workers’ party as the leadership claimed, it was a party for the middle classes (Braun 2006: 28).25 After having competed in the legislative elections of 1956 and 1959 as the only opposition force, the PCT was prohibited in 1963 in the wake of a foiled assassination attempt against Bourguiba (Deeb 1994: 546). The party had its license returned in 1981, a few years before most other opposition parties, and has partaken in every legislative election held since, albeit not with great success. Due to its poor performance at the polls, and taking into account the reality that the party began to mute its criticism of the regime from the mid-1990s onward (i.e., from around the time the PCT became the Ettajdid), it did not amount to much of an opposition force in the years leading up to the eruption of the Jasmine Revolution. Yet, the Ettajdid was markedly more critical and combative than its competitors within the clientelistic opposition. The genuine opposition—clandestine parties with estimated relevance.

Prior to the Jasmine Revolution the opposition was somewhat remarkable in that it included parties that were arguably not opposition forces, such as the PUP and the UDU; a party (the Ettajdid) that was in opposition to the regime, but only very mutedly so; and parties that were genuinely oppositional in character, a reality that saw them forced to operate as clandestine entities. At the time of the last pre–Arab Spring legislative elections in 2009, the so-called genuine opposition essentially consisted of three parties: the Parti Communiste des Ouvriers de Tunisie (PCOT), the Congrès pour la République (CPR), and the Ennahda. Of these three, two were leftist in orientation, while the third was an Islamist outfit. Beginning with the two leftist components of the genuine, but clandestine, opposition, the PCOT first emerged in 1963 following a split within the student union the Union Générale des Étudiants de Tunisie (UGET). During the UGET’s congress of that year, Bourguiba and his supporters managed to gain control of the union in a vote that saw the ballots mysteriously disappear. When the result was disputed by a number of activists, most notably Khémaïs Chamari, Mohamed Charfi, and Ahmed Smaoui, the activists were excluded from the UGET, a reality that led to their setting up an alternative movement, the Groupe d’Études et d’Action Socialiste en Tunisie (GEAST). The GEAST remained active throughout the 1960s despite strong repression by the regime, and in 1971 it changed its name to al’Âmal al-Tûnisi (the Tunisian Worker) (Braun 2006: 30; Chenoufi 1993: 159; Rollinde 1999: 119–120). Only a few years later, marred by internal

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conflict, the movement split into three factions: a Maoist group aligned with the UGTT, a reformist faction headed by Ahmed Néjib Chebbi, and a hard-line group that eventually became the PCOT under the leadership of Hama Hammami in 1986 (Braun 2006: 30–31; Rollinde 1999: 119–120).26 Because of its hard-line stance, the PCOT remained clandestine until the fall of Ben Ali in 2011, and as a consequence the authorities subjected the party to severe repression and its members to extensive human rights abuses (Geisser 1999: 344–345). Gross human rights violations against regime critics were not limited to the PCOT and its followers but were also committed against members of other parties deemed too strong in their opposition to the regime, including the Ennahda and the CPR (Braun 2006; Camau and Geisser 2003; Henry 2007). The CPR was established in 2001 by Moncef Marzouki, the former president of the Ligue Tunisienne des Droits de l’Homme (LTDH), the country’s largest human rights organization and a political actor in its own right, with Michel Camau and Vincent Geisser (2003: 234) characterizing the LTDH as a hybrid between an “association, organisation et parti.”27 Hence, it is somewhat debatable whether the CPR can be categorized as an externally created party given the political gravitas of its founding members, but the party was certainly independent of the regime vehicle.28 That said, the CPR was not without links to other components within the party and political systems as the majority of the CPR’s members were former activists from the Islamist movement who had come to emphasize human rights issues over religious matters, thereby forging a close tie between the party and Islamist entities such as the Ennahda (Braun 2006: 52; Camau and Geisser 2003: 248). Like the CPR, the Ennahda only emerged in the late 1980s, although its roots stretch much further back (to the Mouvement de la Tendance Islamique [MTI] from 1981, and before that the Jamâ’a al-Islamiyya fi Tûnis, which was established in 1979).29 A further similarity is, of course, the fact that both parties remained prohibited from the time of their formation until the fall of Ben Ali in 2011. That said, the extent to which the two parties were feared by the regime differed markedly. Whereas Ben Ali was displeased with the CPR’s continued voicing of dissatisfaction with the regime, he was much more concerned with the Ennahda’s predicted ability to mobilize the population, given the party’s strong links with society.30 In other words, Ben Ali feared that the Ennahda could potentially stage a revolution or, if legalized, outperform the regime party and its candidates in the elections, regardless of whether legislative or presidential (Shahin 1998: 95–97).31 Hence, Ben Ali (like Bourguiba before him) orchestrated harsh repression of the Ennahda and its followers from 1991 onward, using the party’s Islamist credentials as a means to legitimize the party’s prohibition and the gross human rights violations committed by the regime against the

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Islamists.32 Despite the Ennahda’s undeniably being a moderate actor comparable to the Moroccan Parti de la Justice et du Développement (PJD), rather than the Algerian Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the West tacitly accepted the strategy for keeping the Ennahda in check, with French president Jacques Chirac endorsing Ben Ali’s “democracy without the fundamentalists” during a visit to the country in 1995 (Garon 2003: 126).33 Although the victim of state repression, the Ennahda remained active on the ground, and over the years the party and its key figures, particularly party leader Rachid Ghannouchi, became extremely skilled at playing the political game, gauging the party’s room for maneuver vis-à-vis the regime and the other members of the opposition, and adapting the rhetoric accordingly, thereby ensuring the Ennahda’s survival during those very difficult years (Braun 2006: 39–40; Camau and Geisser 2003: 246, 311–313).

The Outlook of the Relevant Parties Prior to the Jasmine Revolution It is perhaps stating the obvious, given the various political developments in the postindependence era, when saying that quite a significant proportion of the relevant parties have undergone profound change since their formation. The most important factor shaping these changes has unquestionably been the tentative opening up of the political system in the early 1990s, when votes began to count more, if only marginally so. A further important factor has been the realization by the opposition forces that the introduction of pluralism was only nominal—real power, and therefore patronage, remained firmly in the hands of the president. The Early Years: Vote-, Office-, or Policy-Seeking?

As a consequence of the political context at the time of their formation, none of the parties were vote-seeking at the outset, either because they had no incentive to compete for votes as the regime party was guaranteed all seats in parliament (the PSP, the PUP, and the UDU), or because they were barred from participating in elections (the MDS, the PCT, and the Destour). It is important to note, however, that the parties within the latter group were prevented from partaking in legislative elections for different reasons. While the MDS was barred from running in the elections held shortly after its formation as all parties save for the PSD were prohibited at the time, the PCT and the Destour were prevented from fielding candidates because the French authorities denied the Tunisians a legislature of their own34—that is, there were no legislative elections to enter.35

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Effectively robbed of the opportunity to be vote-seeking, with no chance of gaining office, and due to the tense political climate at the time, both the Destour and the PCT were naturally policy-seeking when they were first established. Whereas the Destour took a firm stance against the French, leading the struggle for independence and successfully mobilizing the masses, the PCT had a very different outlook. Not surprisingly, given its roots within the PCF, the PCT did not emphasize independence as its main priority, but rather the rights of the Tunisian workers, a fact that undoubtedly lost the party a lot of supporters (Braun 2006: 20, 28; Deeb 1994: 533– 534). Emerging much later, in the late 1970s, the MDS had a significantly more difficult time positioning itself politically. The party could not anchor itself on the struggle for independence like the PCT and the Destour, nor was it possible for the MDS to be too critical of the regime party as this would result in a permanent position among the clandestine opposition (Camau and Geisser 2003: 232). Hence, the MDS attempted to take a middle way, arguing that although it was socialist, it differed from the regime party in truly valuing the voice of the people. This was a pledge the MDS sought to live up to in the subsequent legislative elections, where it fielded candidates in most districts and actually managed to shake the regime party somewhat given its mobilizational skills (Camau and Geisser 2003: 232, 252; Perkins 2004: 189, 195). Although created not long after the establishment of the MDS, the PSP, PUP, and UDU differed markedly from the former in their orientation. Due to their close links with the regime party, and because of their personalistic character, none of these parties was preoccupied with policy or overly concerned with appealing to the electorate. Rather, these parties, particularly the PUP and the UDU, whose lineage could be traced back to the regime party, centered their efforts on currying favor with the PSD/RCD in the hope of gaining access to patronage (Camau and Geisser 2003: 233–237). Party Change from Independence Until 2009

The PUP, the UDU, the PSP/PSDL, and the PSP/PVP were the parties that changed the least in the period between their inception and the legislative elections of 2009, the last to be held prior to the Jasmine Revolution. Although these parties were relatively young if compared to the Destour/NéoDestour/PSD/RCD, the PCT/Ettajdid, and to some extent also the MDS, this is unlikely to be the reason why not much change took place even after the tentative opening up of the political system. Rather, a much more plausible explanation is that although the political context changed somewhat over the years, with votes counting more in 2009 than they did in the past, this development did not have a major impact on the direction of these four

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parties as they were essentially small personal vehicles that would find it difficult to attract a significant proportion of the electorate. Moreover, with the electoral system still awarding the vast majority of the seats in parliament to the regime party, they stood to gain much more from remaining close to the channels of patronage than by suddenly changing their strategy and seeking to appeal to the electorate, which would also (given the lack of ideology thus far) be a very time consuming task.36 Unlike the PUP, the UDU, the PSP/PSDL, and the PSP/PVP, the other three so-called relevant parties, namely, the Destour/Néo-Destour/PSD/ RCD, the PCT/Ettajdid, and the MDS, underwent quite profound changes over the years. The Destour/Néo-Destour/PSD/RCD and the MDS changed from policy-seeking into office-seeking parties, while the PCT/Ettajdid developed into a vote-seeking party. The transformation of the Destour/NéoDestour/PSD/RCD is perhaps the least spectacular as the party naturally became much more office-seeking following the changed political context in the wake of independence, and then after the tentative political opening of the mid-1990s. Whereas the party could not compete for office at the time of its formation, by 2009 office had become something that was gained by winning elections, even if heavily manipulated ones. Hence, the Destour/ Néo-Destour/PSD/RCD logically shifted from being policy-oriented during its early years to being an office-seeking entity, a reality that was to be expected due to the dominant role played by the party for the past many decades. Finally, it is worth noting that while the Destour/Néo-Destour/ PSD/RCD did not have to compete much for votes due to its status as the regime vehicle, the party maintained an emphasis on strong links with society, and it insisted on vigorously fighting in the various legislative and presidential elections held during those years, even though it could easily just have manipulated the results to suit its purpose.37 One reason why the Destour/Néo-Destour/PSD/RCD continued to focus on mobilizing the masses was the fear of the opposition, particularly the Islamists and the MDS, which had proved capable of attracting relatively large numbers of supporters. In the wake of the tentative opening up of the political system in 1994, and the holding of the heavily manipulated municipal elections of 1995, the MDS initiated a serious campaign against the regime that saw key figures such as Mohamed Moada and Khémaïs Chamari arrested or put under house arrest (Braun 2006: 46; Garon 2003: 158–159; Geisser 1999: 337–338). In the wake of Moada’s and Chamari’s absence, Ismaïl Boulahya took over the party leadership, a development that effectively ended oppositional activities38 as Boulahya was nothing but a “regime stooge” as Lise Garon (2003: 159) so aptly puts it.39 The MDS’s move from being a policy-oriented party to an office-seeking party can, in other words, be explained as a consequence of the party adapting to, and being manipulated by, the political environment it operated in at the time.

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The ability of the regime to affect major political decisions within the party, particularly Boulahya’s takeover in 1997, and the latter’s desire to benefit from the channels of patronage, were the main determining factors behind the change. In contrast to the MDS, the PCT/Ettajdid managed to remain oppositional, although its antiregime voice was muted from the mid-1990s onward. In an effort to attract more voters, and undoubtedly also with a view to appease the regime, the party was reconfigured in 1993 and formally abandoned communism, a reality that also led the party to change its name from the PCT to the Movement of Renewal—the Ettajdid. In the words of party leader Mohamed Harmel, the Ettajdid constituted a completely fluid entity, a so-called parti anti-parti that sought to unite the population and strengthen democracy (Braun 2006: 29–30; Camau and Geisser 2003: 233).40 Cutting down to the bone what little ideological commitment the party had had previously, and toning down its criticism of the regime, the PCT/Ettajdid had unquestionably developed into a vote-seeking party, which undoubtedly had aspirations of becoming a catch-all party and thereby increasing its share of power.41 This was a strategy quite different from that of the other relevant parties, which had all become office-seeking by 2009.42 That said, unlike in the Moroccan case, where the main political parties had converged at the last pre–Arab Spring elections, this was not the case in Tunisia. While the PUP, UDU, PSDL, PVP, and RCD could, indeed, best be described as patronage parties, this was the case with neither the MDS nor the Ettajdid, although the former was also office-seeking.

Pacted Politics? A nondemocratic regime kept in place by a complex web of control, repression, and patronage: this is the only way to describe Tunisia in the period from independence until the fall of Ben Ali in early 2011, although the level of intensity of repression has, of course, varied over the years.43 It was Bourguiba who, afraid of losing his grip on power, set up the system, but it was Ben Ali, the man who succeeded in toppling him, who perfected it to the extent that very few people could even imagine its demise. The Nature of the Political System Prior to the Jasmine Revolution

Following the ousting of Bourguiba, Ben Ali initially gave the impression that the personalistic bureaucratic-authoritarian system in place prior to his ascent would be coming to an end, if not immediately, then in the near future (Braun 2006: 18; Erdle 2011: 68; Penner Angrist 1999: 89–90). Real-

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ity, however, was entirely different. Whereas Bourguiba had relied mainly on the army and the party militias to maintain control, Ben Ali redistributed much of this task to the courts and the police, thereby ensuring not only their co-optation, but also their total submission, as new lines of command, all with Ben Ali at the top, were established (Camau and Geisser 2003: 203–212; Erdle 2011: 143).44 In short, in the space of just a few years, Ben Ali concentrated power in his own hands, transforming Tunisia from an authoritarian state to a totalitarian one, and the regime party from the party of the state to the party of the president.45 Moreover, the inclusion of the judiciary in particular into the system of control added an entirely new dimension, as regime critics were now also persecuted very publicly through the courts, making the repression of opposition voices appear legitimate.46 Consequently, the fear of voicing opposition grew steadily during Ben Ali’s reign as the repercussions were so far-ranging, not only for the individual voicing opposition, but also for that person’s family and immediate circle of friends (Garon 1998: 30–39). Hence, a number of opposition figures chose to leave the country and continue their activities from abroad (Garon 1998: 30–39),47 while those who remained on Tunisian soil either entered into a pact with the regime in order for their parties to retain their legal status, or fought the regime clandestinely. The functions of parties in Tunisia—the view from above. Given the extremely repressive nature of Ben Ali’s regime and that of Bourguiba before him, political parties have not had much of a function in Tunisian politics. To Bourguiba, political parties, save for the regime party, had no role to play, although he did at times tolerate their existence in an effort to ensure his own political survival. Moreover, with regard to the regime party, its functions were viewed as extremely limited, with the party serving mainly as a policy discussion forum and a vehicle for toothless citizen integration. Compared to Bourguiba, Ben Ali had a somewhat more complex view of the functions of political parties. On the one hand, there was the regime party, whose main functions were to execute orders issued by the president and to act as a vehicle for the co-optation of social elites and budding opposition figures (Camau and Geisser 2003: 217; Erdle 2011: 159, 167). On the other, there were the opposition parties, which Ben Ali not only tolerated, but actively encouraged, as he saw these as performing a key role in the political system, giving “representation to those currents and groups which are beyond the reach of the regime and the Destour,” thereby widening the regime’s support base among the general population at a very low cost (Erdle 2011: 298).48 In other words, to Ben Ali, the functions of political parties depended on a party’s status—regime party or opposition party. Yet, despite this diversification, under Ben Ali the parties carried out still fewer of the functions traditionally associated with political parties, as not

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even the regime party was afforded the opportunity to debate national policy issues (Erdle 2011: 159; Penner Angrist 1999: 92–99). The functions of parties—a note on maturity. So far, the discussion has centered on the issue of how the environment has shaped (as the main factor) the formation, development, and outlook of the parties in the period from independence until the fall of Ben Ali in early 2011. Yet, it is important to underline that while the regime afforded the political parties very little space, another important issue has been the pronounced lack of maturity of the country’s politicians, who have utilized the various political parties as vehicles for their personal promotion (Camau and Geisser 2003: 236– 237). Largely because they were not created as a result of popular pressure, but rather came about as a consequence of a fission from an already existing party (often following a contest over the leadership of the party), or were otherwise internally created, virtually none of the legal parties were formed with a view to integrate and mobilize the citizenry, nor were they established in order to articulate and aggregate the interests of the general population—two of the main representative functions of political parties highlighted by Peter Mair (2002: 6). These parties did not, in other words, have any roots in society at the time of their formation, and more importantly they made hardly any attempt to establish any, for example, via the formulation of clear party programs,49 the holding of party congresses, and the opening of local party offices—all activities that would have forged a bond between a particular party and the electorate. In other words, while it is true that Bourguiba and Ben Ali robbed the parties of the opportunity to carry out, to any meaningful extent, their procedural functions, such as the recruitment of political leaders and the nomination of persons to public offices, as well as the organization of parliament and government, it was the leadership of the various parties that chose not to honor the representative functions of parties. This is perhaps not such a surprising observation when one considers the parties that can be traced back to the regime party, or whose formation was encouraged by the regime. However, with regard to those parties that defined themselves as opposition parties from the outset, most notably the MDS and the Ettajdid, it seems rather remarkable that they made the decision not to act as representatives of the people, but made the choice to effectively become clients of the regime in exchange for an official party license. After all, not long after Ben Ali’s ascent to power it became readily apparent that the legal opposition parties would be unable to change the regime from within, hence, a position among the clandestine but genuine opposition parties ought to have been preferable.50 Yet, rather than stepping into character and presenting, in consultation with the general population, an alternative vision to that of the regime, the parties simply emulated the RCD, both in terms of poli-

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cies and style, a reality that meant that most Tunisians were indifferent toward the opposition parties (Camau and Geisser 2003: 232; Erdle 2011: 318).51 Consequently, by the time the Jasmine Revolution erupted, the legal parties served two functions: they presented an illusion of pluralism to Western donors (Erdle 2011: 170), and for a relatively small political elite they served as personal vehicles for amassing patronage and (some semblance of) power, thereby keeping the system stable. They did not, by any means, serve as mechanisms for meaningful citizen integration.

Notes 1. Sartori (1976: 230) defines a hegemonic party system as one where more than one party is allowed to exist, but where these other parties are all peripheral and stand no chance of gaining power due to the very controlling and hierarchical nature of the system. In comparison, a predominant system is less controlling, and there is at least the theoretical possibility of power alternating between parties. If elections are manipulated to such an extent that the opposition parties, which must be legal for the party system to be characterized as predominant, have no chance of winning, the party system should be classified as hegemonic (Sartori 1976: 237). In a single-party system, only one party is allowed to exist (Sartori 1976: 221). 2. Majoritarian party list system (Braun 2006: 22). See also Martínez Fuentes and Montabes Pereira (2010). 3. Elections were seen as a way of gauging the citizenry’s satisfaction with the policy direction taken (Erdle 2011: 168). 4. It is important to underline that the MDS and the MUP II were not legalized until 1983; they were simply given special permission to contest the elections. The PCT was the only legal opposition party at the time of the legislative elections of 1981 (Braun 2006: 29; Camau and Geisser 2003: 226–240). 5. In 1987, Ben Ali, the then prime minister, had Bourguiba removed from power in a bloodless coup d’état. Following speculations about Bourguiba’s health, he was declared medically unfit to carry out the duties of the presidency, which Ben Ali assumed. Presidential elections, which were fought only by Ben Ali, were held in 1989. 6. Despite their withdrawal, the independent lists as well as those of the PUP were kept on the books, and both groups received a small share of the valid votes cast. Please also note that the PCT signed the pacte national, which institutionalized Ben Ali’s new multiparty system, but chose to boycott the 1989 legislative elections (Braun 2006: 29). The UDU, which fought the 1989 elections under the Union Patriotique banner, was not a signatory given that the party was not created until 1988 (see Figure 5.2). 7. All references made to election results are based on the data presented in Appendix B. 8. The opposition seats would be allocated on the basis of national lists using proportional representation (Martínez Fuentes and Montabes Pereira 2010: 191–192). 9. According to Sartori (1976: 123), a party possesses blackmail potential “whenever its existence, or appearance, affects the tactics of party competition and particularly when it alters the direction of the competition—by determining a switch from centripetal to centrifugal competition either leftward, rightward, or in both directions—of the governing-oriented parties.”

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10. For more details, please refer to Figure 5.2 further in the text and the discussion that follows. 11. Do bear in mind that although the MDS can be traced back to the PSD, the party has in periods been highly oppositional in outlook and has, accordingly, often been referred to as the principal opposition force, not only due to its size. See, among others, Braun (2006: 46) and Camau and Geisser (2003). 12. The PSD/RCD had, of course, established extensive roots in society given that Tunisia was a party state, not only during the years when the single-party system was in place, but in the entire period stretching from independence until January 2011. For more on this, please refer to Erdle (2011). As for the opposition parties, this is not to say that they would necessarily have made a concerted effort to establish strong and stable roots in society had they had the opportunity to do so (Camau and Geisser 2003: 232, 242). 13. This is not only true with regard to the more durable opposition parties listed earlier in this section, namely, the Ettajdid, the PDP, the PSL, the PUP, and the MDS, but also the more recent entities such as the Forum Démocratique pour le Travail et les Libertés (FDTL) and the UDU. 14. Erdle (2011: 320) shares this position. 15. As expected, given the party’s fall from grace in 1987, the RCD advocated a boycott of the 1999 presidential elections, as did the RSP, which was barred from fielding a candidate as it did not hold seats in parliament (http://www.medea.be/fr/pays /algerie/rcd-rassemblement-pour-la-culture-et-la-democratie/; http://www.unhcr.org /refworld/publisher,IRBC,,TUN,3df4beb120,0.html). The RSP was also prohibited from fielding its leader in the 2004 presidential elections, but did so regardless (see http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,IRBC,,TUN,42df619b2f,0.html). Hence, the strongest voices in favor of a boycott in 2004 came from the clandestine entities: the Parti Communiste des Ouvriers de Tunisie (PCOT), Congrès pour la République (CPR), and Ennahda (Chouikha 2004: 6). The Ennahda and the PCOT maintained their boycotting stance in 2009, while the PDP was prevented from fielding Chebbi due to a new provision stipulating that the party leader had to be elected at a party congress (Gobe and Chouikha 2010: 3). 16. Although the Néo-Destour was prohibited prior to 1956, the party’s activities were largely tolerated, which is why it was able to organize and establish roots in society (Moore 1962: 462). 17. Please note that the split remained important even after Ben Youssef’s assassination in 1956 as it exposed serious divisions within society (Erdle 2011: 60–61). 18. This is not to say that Ben Ali’s regime was not different to that of Bourguiba. See Erdle (2011). 19. Please note that Camau and Geisser (2003: 231; 237–240) find the term clients too strong in some cases. 20. Kéfi (2003) argues rather convincingly that Tlili set up the UDU at Ben Ali’s request in order to give the impression that political opposition was, indeed, allowed. 21. Braun (2006: 31) states that UDU, the RSP, and the PSL were the parties with the weakest roots in society. They had hardly any popular foundations. 22. Ruedy (1996: 212) refers to these personalistic parties as “salon” parties, and singles out Béji’s PSL as the epitome. 23. It should be noted that following the split, the PSL was renamed the PSDL. Yet, the party is still frequently referred to under its previous name. 24. Chouikha (2004) also includes the PDP and the Forum Démocratique pour le Travail et les Libertés (FDTL). These have been excluded from the analysis here as they did not obtain any seats following the legislative elections of 2009 and therefore do not meet the relevance criteria. The two parties will, however, be discussed

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in some detail in Chapter 6, along with a number of other parties, such as the Pétition Populaire pour la Liberté, la Justice et le Développement (PP or, alternatively, al-Aridha), which meet the relevance criteria in the wake of the Arab Spring. 25. Braun (2006: 28) claims that the PCT was less proletarian than the regime party. Camau and Geisser (2003: 244) even go as far as to label the party elitist. 26. Chebbi established the RSP in 1983. 27. See also Braun (2006: 33–34); Chouikha and Gobe (2009). 28. Marzouki intended to present himself as a candidate in the presidential elections of 1994, but was barred from doing so (Braun 2006: 48). 29. Given the fact that the Ennahda descends directly from previous Islamist entities, it is not possible to characterize the party as externally created. However, the Jamâ’a al-Islamiyya fi Tûnis was, indeed, externally created, meaning that the lineage of the Ennahda is far more independent than that of the other parties, which were all set up by seasoned politicians. See Shahin (1998: 63–111). 30. Hermassi (1995: 105) claims that the Ennahda at times took the character of a mass party. 31. The Islamist elements of the Ennahda’s agenda were not, in other words, the main concern (Camau and Geisser 2003: 246; Shahin 1998: 95–105). 32. Please note that both leaders first used the Ennahda as a means to strengthen their power. Bourguiba attempted to utilize the Ennahda to keep the leftist opposition in check in the 1970s, while Ben Ali released Islamists imprisoned under Bourguiba in order to gain their support during the early years of his reign (Braun 2006: 36; Erdle 2011: 65–66; Henry 2007; Shahin 1998: 99–105). 33. See also Camau and Geisser (2003: 291, 313); Garon (2003: 126–127); Shahin (1998: 63–64). It is worth noting that the radical Tunisian Islamists came together in the small clandestine Parti de la Libération Islamique (PLI) (Braun 2006: 39; Shahin 1998: 80–82). 34. And when the French eventually allowed for the establishment of a so-called Grand Conseil in 1922, its Tunisian members were indirectly elected and only made up a minority (Deeb 1994: 531). 35. This is not to say that none of the parties made an effort to mobilize the citizenry, as some of them certainly did, particularly the PCT (Ettajdid) and the NéoDestour (RCD) during the struggle for independence. 36. Camau and Geisser (2003: 192–202) demonstrate how impossible it was for members of the opposition to obtain cabinet portfolios or other powerful positions. During the period 1987–2001, only 2.6 percent of ministers and presidential councilors had previously been members of an opposition party, while 1.7 percent had belonged to an independent association in the past. 37. For more on the RCD’s activities directed at society, see Camau and Geisser (2003: 214–220). 38. The MDS even endorsed Ben Ali’s candidacy in the nominally competitive presidential elections of 1999, 2004, and 2009 (Camau and Geisser 2003: 252; Chouikha 2004: 362; Geisser 1999: 337–338; Gobe and Chouikha 2010: 3). 39. In 1997, shortly after having taken over the MDS leadership at a party conference that Moada and other key personalities were unable to attend due to repression, Boulahya famously stated, “At the beginning of this historical transition, we cannot afford to think about alternation of power. . . . Tunisia must follow its destiny under the command of President Ben Ali” (Garon 2003: 159). Moada continued to head a rebellious faction within the MDS after Boulahya’s takeover, and he even attempted to present himself as a candidate in the 1999 presidential elections but was stopped in his tracks by the party leadership, which sought to avoid any conflict

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with the regime (Camau and Geisser 2003: 338). The MDS was, in other words, essentially split into two wings: Boulahya’s regime-friendly faction and another oppositional wing headed by Moada and his supporters, most notably Mohamed Ali Khalfallah and Ahmed Khaskhoussi (Abdelhaq and Heumann 2000: 31; Gobe 2002: 389–390). 40. As discussed previously, the Ettajdid was hardly a worker-oriented party prior to the reconfiguration of 1993. 41. If the Ettajdid had ever succeeded in becoming a catch-all party, it would, indeed, have been a spectacular feat given that the party was essentially Harmel’s personal vehicle. 42. Do note that the Ettajdid had not become so acquiescent that it halted all its oppositional activities. The party presented its own candidate for the presidential elections of 2004 and 2009, and both times it was genuine in its contestation, seeking to win the battle although it had already been determined beforehand (Chouikha 2004; Gobe and Chouikha 2010). It is true, though, that Harmel supported Ben Ali’s candidature in 1999 (Abdelhaq and Heumann 2000: 36, 39). 43. Please note that while the discussion of pacted politics in the Algerian and Moroccan cases utilizes data on trust produced by the World Values Surveys, this has not been possible in the Tunisian case as the country has not been part of the surveys in the past and, consequently, no comparable data exist. 44. Note that several scholars refer to Ben Ali’s regime as a police state. See, among others, Lamloum and Ravenel (2000: 179) and Hostrup Haugbølle and Cavatorta (2011: 339). 45. Erdle (2011: 150–153) details how Ben Ali made all key decisions himself, without consulting the cabinet that had become nothing but an executer of the president’s will. The same was more or less also the case with the regime party (Lamloum and Ravenel 2000: 179). See also Camau and Geisser (2003: 214–220); Garon (1998: 30); and Penner Angrist (1999: 97–99). 46. In addition, the mukhabarat carried out covert (albeit by no means unknown) repression. In fact, the mukhabarat had been expanded greatly (Camau and Geisser 2003: 203–207; Erdle 2011: 143; Garon 1998: 34–35). 47. Among them were the former prime minister Mohamed Mzali, Rachid Ghannouchi (Ennahda), and Moncef Marzouki (CPR). 48. See also Penner Angrist (1999) and Camau and Geisser (2003). 49. There were admittedly limits to how clear the parties could be in the formulation of policies if they wished to retain their license. 50. See also Erdle (2011: 318–320); Hostrup Haugbølle and Cavatorta (2011). 51. Erdle (2011: 320) argues that the parties had simply resigned to their fate and had given up hope of changing the system. Hence, their main focus became increasing their access to patronage. Hostrup Haugbølle and Cavatorta (2011: 336– 341) are more forgiving in their assessment, detailing how the PDP, along with the clandestine CPR and Ennahda, sought to set up an alternative to the regime, albeit a rather feeble one.

6 Prospects for Democracy in Tunisia

The Tunisian party system just prior to the outbreak of the Jasmine Revolution was hardly conducive to establishing democracy. One political party, the Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique (RCD), sat on all political power and consequently was not in the slightest reformist. There were not, in other words, any partisan reformers within the regime for the moderate opposition parties to negotiate with. Taking into consideration the extremely strong position Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had established for himself since his ascent to power in the late 1980s, it was difficult to see where a challenge to his regime would come from. There were no obvious candidates within the RCD, as all potential contenders had been purged and any sign of disloyalty was swiftly and severely punished. The police had benefited extensively from various forms of patronage at the expense of the army—in fact, the only hope appeared to be that a strongman would emerge from either the police (i.e., a person with significant political ambitions of his own) or, indeed, from the army, which had been sidelined by Ben Ali. To most people, either scenario appeared rather unlikely: unlikely to come about, and unlikely to result in democracy. The prospects for democracy did not improve much if one took into consideration the state of the opposition. The parties genuinely in favor of regime change were located within the radical camp, partly as a consequence of their prohibition, which excluded them from the official bargaining process, but also because over the years these parties had become vehemently opposed to affording any legitimacy to the Ben Ali regime. In other words, the problem with the opposition camp was not the lack of moderate forces; there were plenty of these. The difficulty was that these moderate forces were hardly oppositional; they had become co-opted by the regime 111

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to the extent that most of them could only be classified as in opposition to the regime by virtue of these parties not being the regime party itself. As the Ben Ali regime took root, some of the parties that had originally constituted opposition forces moderated in exchange for political patronage as they saw this as the most viable strategy. Even the opposition parties had given up on changing the system peacefully from within. In short, by December 2010, when the Jasmine Revolution was set in motion by Mohamed Bouazizi, the prospects for a pacted transition to democracy seemed rather bleak, most notably due to the lack of reformers within the regime. Taking into consideration the longevity of the Ben Ali regime, few people also anticipated a democratic transition as a result of a revolutionary process. Yet, despite the grim prospects, Tunisia did transition to democracy. The analysis in the subsequent sections sets out the developments that led to the breakdown of the authoritarian regime and provides an assessment of the regime that came to replace that of Ben Ali. It shows how the revolutionary atmosphere enabled a pacted transition as the army and key members of the RCD transformed from hard-liners into reformers, while radicals within the opposition became moderates—developments that facilitated negotiations within the country’s political elite and that resulted in the (rather) peaceful overthrow of the incumbent regime. Pacted transitions tend to include some form of exit guarantees for those forces previously at the center of power, and this was certainly also the case in Tunisia. However, many of the deals initially negotiated with members of the ancien régime were retracted in the wake of widespread public anger, paving the way for a new regime virtually devoid of any ties with the past. That said, as this chapter highlights, the new Tunisian democracy is not without its difficulties, the main problem being the lack of democratic transformation within the key components of the regime, the political parties. While the political system has undergone profound change, the political parties still remain personal vehicles with weak programs and virtually no roots in society. In other words, Tunisia appears to be en route to consolidating a rather hollow democracy.

The Fall of Ben Ali The self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi on December 17, 2010, set in motion Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, which eventually spread across the Middle East and North Africa under the name of the Arab Spring. Because the Tunisian protests were the first to take place, they had a number of advantages. Most important, they were unanticipated, as they were not inspired by events in neighboring countries and, furthermore, they did not ini-

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tially seek regime change but rather socioeconomic reforms that would assist in alleviating poverty by generating jobs and lowering food prices (Paciello 2011). Going into slightly more detail, what began as local demonstrations in sympathy with Bouazizi evolved into protests seeking socioeconomic reforms as people in other cities, such as Kasserine, Gafsa, and Sfax, also took to the streets after images of police brutality against the demonstrators in Sidi Bouzid had been posted online and aired by alJazeera and France 24 as well as other foreign news media (Mandraud 2011). The significance of the demonstrations, which had been ignored in the Tunisian media, became readily apparent on December 25 when the minister of development, Mohamed al-Nouri al-Juwayni, announced the introduction of new measures to combat youth and graduate unemployment (Honwana 2011: 2–3). However, rather than appease the protesters, the move seemed to ignite them, as there was suddenly proof that they were being heard. Consequently, in the following days the demonstrations spread across the country, most notably to Tunis, and the number of protesters skyrocketed (Ryan 2011). On December 28, Ben Ali cut his holidays short and returned to Tunisia. In an attempt to restore order, he visited Bouazizi in the hospital under much publicity and subsequently addressed the nation, but his efforts were in vain as the protests continued. It was not until the death of Bouazizi on January 4, 2011, that the demonstrations escalated to such an extent that they became threatening to the regime. Before then, the protests had been largely uncoordinated and leaderless, with demonstrators alerting each other of events on short notice via cyberspace, particularly through outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. This made it very difficult for the regime to put an end to their activities (Mandraud 2011; Ryan 2011; Paciello 2011). The various political parties, whether the legal opposition or those opposition parties operating as clandestine entities, did not offer much support to the demonstrators, and neither did other powerful societal associations apart from the Sidi Bouzid branch of the Union Générale des Travailleurs Tunisiens (UGTT), which went against the directions of the national leadership of the union (Alexander 2011; Bensemra 2011; Ryan 2011). However, when it became clear that the protests were actually being taken seriously by the regime, and that they might be utilized to topple Ben Ali, the opposition parties and the UGTT eventually came out publicly in support of the demonstrators. Not long after, the army refused to crack down on the protesters, leaving Ben Ali with little choice but to flee the country as hundreds of thousands of Tunisians took to the streets on January 14 and demanded that he step down, angrily chanting “Ben Ali, dégage!” (Kirkpatrick 2011; Honwana 2011: 4–5).

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The Interim Governments

The fall of Ben Ali brought about instant euphoria, but the excitement soon wore off as it became evident that the Jasmine Revolution was no revolution, but had simply resulted in the transition from one authoritarian regime to another as Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi seized the opportunity to become “interim president” with the blessing of the army, which many viewed as the main power holder (Tharoor 2011). Dissatisfied with the level of change, and confident in their power given their sudden and unexpected success, the protesters took to the streets once again, demanding that Ghannouchi step down. Hence, on January 15, 2011, Ghannouchi was replaced by Fouad Mebazaâ, the former speaker of parliament, who promptly announced that legislative elections would be held within sixty days as stipulated in the constitution (Le Monde with AFP and Reuters 2011). Given that Mebazaâ was also a member of the RCD, coupled with the fact that Ghannouchi was made prime minister in the interim government formed on January 17, which encompassed a number of key RCD members, the demonstrators were hardly content, and they consequently continued their campaign. The result was the appointment of a second interim government, still headed by Ghannouchi, but devoid of other RCD members (Honwana 2011: 14). Ghannouchi’s staying power led to further protests, and on January 27 he was replaced by Béji Caïd Essebsi, who was thought to be more acceptable as he was identified more strongly with the Bourguiba regime than with that of Ben Ali (Hibou 2011a). In a bid to appease the protesters, Essebsi announced the dissolution of the political police and the security apparatus. Much less popular was the decision to postpone the legislative elections from July until October 2011 (Honwana 2011: 15).

The Party System and the First Post–Arab Spring Elections In accordance with the promises made in the wake of Essebsi’s appointment, legislative elections took place as scheduled.1 Hence, on October 23, 2011, the Tunisian electorate went to the polls for the first time since the fall of Ben Ali, voting in truly free and fair, competitive elections that presented them with a choice of 106 recognized political parties as well as a number of independents (Union Européenne 2011). The country had moved from one extreme to another—from a hegemonic party system with tentative steps toward predominance to a party system that, prior to the elections, appeared atomized and was virtually impossible to navigate. Yet, the electorate seemed unimpressed; of the 8,289,924 eligible voters, only 52 percent actually went ahead and cast a vote (see Figure 5.1). Furthermore, according to various reports, no fewer than 3,882,727 eligible voters chose

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not to register at all.2 A very damning sign indeed, although there were admittedly well-documented difficulties with the voter registration process (Ghanmi 2011; IFES 2012; Carter Center 2012). The Results of the First Post–Arab Spring Elections

The explosive growth in the number of new parties entering the scene in the wake of the fall of Ben Ali was to be expected given the very restrictive nature of the previous regime. All of a sudden, people could voice their political opinions freely, discussions could be had, and parties could be formed. Indeed, there were very few restrictions, the main one being the prevention of previous members of the RCD running in the legislative elections, although the ban excluded those who had previously been cabinet members as well as their advisers and staff (i.e., hardly anyone) (Honwana 2011: 15; al-Jazeera 2011). The majority of the many new parties followed the tradition of Tunisian parties, that is, they were essentially personal vehicles with no coherent political program. Hence, in the case of most of these (and as discussed in further detail later), they never stood a chance of success as their leaders were simply not well-known enough to muster cross-regional support. The consequence of the developments within the party system was that the electorate was presented with an impossible number of parties to choose from—parties that they did not know much about, and parties that were difficult to distinguish from each other, not only in terms of name, but also in terms of program, as the latter was largely missing (Hibou 2011a: 4). On polling day, quite as expected, the electorate responded by opting for the well-known entities, whether new or old. These were parties that were clandestine during Ben Ali’s reign and parties that were headed by leaders that were familiar faces not only to a select group of people, but across the country, whether as a result of their political activities or enormous wealth. In other words, while electoral volatility was immense given the rise of the Ennahda and the dissolution of the RCD (the Pedersen index came to 99.9), the effective number of parties was a respectable 4.6. The RCD’s exit had a similarly significant effect upon other indicators of party system institutionalization. The seat share of the parties formed prior to 1970 dropped from 76.1 to 0.9, as the only legal “old” party, the Ettajdid, won a meager two seats.3 The average age of parties winning in excess of 10 percent of the seats fell to fourteen years—down from sixty years at the time of the legislative elections of 2009.4 Of the more than 100 parties that contested the October 2011 elections, only 19 succeeded in obtaining seats, resulting in a parliament that was, indeed, fragmented and somewhat difficult to navigate for the electorate. Yet, in terms of decisionmaking power, the outcome was rather straightforward

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as only five parties were of genuine relevance as they were the only to secure in excess of 5 percent of the seats up for contestation. These five parties were the two previously prohibited entities (the Ennahda and the Congrès pour la République [CPR]), the newcomer al-Aridha (PP), as well as the Forum Démocratique pour le Travail et les Libertés (FDTL) and the Parti Démocrate Progressiste (PDP), which were both legal but insignificant toward the end of Ben Ali’s regime. The Performance of the Relevant Parties and the Character of the Main New Entities

Rather than beginning with the most interesting parties (i.e., the newcomer and those that had previously been excluded), it seems more constructive to start off with the formerly relevant parties, as their demise or dissolution explains a great deal about the nature and extent of political change in post– Arab Spring Tunisia. Irrelevant entities. The most important development with regard to the country’s party system was undoubtedly the dissolution of the RCD on March 9 in the run-up to the 2011 elections (Agence France-Presse 2011d). As already mentioned, the exit of the RCD directly affected a number of party-system institutionalization indicators, but the party’s dissolution also had significant indirect impact, as it gave rise to a number of new parties established by former key figures within the RCD. While some of these new parties did very little to hide their relationship with the ancien régime, such as the Parti Néodestourien and al-Watan, other parties, most notably the al-Moubadara (LI) and Afek Tounes (AT) were keen to dispel rumors of even the slightest tie to Ben Ali (Bouaouina 2011). Yet, given the composition of their leaderships and the lack of clear political programs, there was no denying the strong relationship between the RCD and the two parties, just as it was impossible to hide their populist character. The LI was established by Kamel Morjane, a former minister of defense under Ben Ali who had also held a post in Ghannouchi’s first interim cabinet (Dahmani 2011; Khémira 2011). The party clearly catered to those who longed for the old days and who were (secretly) sad to see the dissolution of the RCD, with Morjane stating that “Le parti El-Moubadara, dont je suis le fondateur, travaille à partir des données et des demandes de cette nouvelle Tunisie, tout en étant ancré dans un terreau destourien progressiste” [The party El-Moubadara, of which I am the founder, works on the basis of the facts and demands of this new Tunisia, while rooted in the progressive destourian ground] (Dahmani 2011). With regard to the AT, the situation was no different. Several members of the party’s leadership had previously belonged to the RCD, and Yassine Brahim, one of the key per-

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sonalities, had held a ministerial post in the Essebsi interim government (Khémira 2011). Despite these ties to the Ben Ali regime, the AT was predicted to do well in the legislative elections, not because of a strong political profile, but because of the party’s access to funds and the fact that it was one of the only parties to appeal to the business elite (Le Courrier de l’Atlas 2011). However, in the end, neither the LI nor the AT performed particularly well, each party winning only in the neighborhood of 2 percent of the contested seats. In the wake of the dissolution of the RCD and the mushrooming of new political parties, many of which were hoping to lift the legacy of the regime party, the MDS and the Ettajdid, the two more established opposition entities, suddenly found themselves in a rather uncomfortable situation. Now they would have to compete for votes with the new entries, as well as attempt to claw back the voters that both parties had lost as they moderated to please Ben Ali (as discussed in Chapter 5). Of the two parties, it was the MDS that found itself in the most difficult position as the party had become office-seeking at the time of the 2009 elections, while the Ettajdid had transformed from policy-seeking to vote-seeking. In other words, the Ettajdid was better equipped to face the electorate. To make matters worse for the MDS, the party not only had to adapt quickly to the changed environment, but also faced serious internal disaccord. In an effort to solve all the problems in one go, the MDS held an extraordinary congress in February 2011, but failed to reach unity. On August 14, not long before the elections, an agreement was reached by appointing Mohamed Ali Khalfallah of the rebelling branch as the party’s president, while making the head of the “original” branch, Taïeb Mohsni, the secretary general (La Presse de Tunisie 2011a, 2011b). Yet, closer to polling day splits appeared again, and in some districts two lists of MDS candidates were presented (Agence Tunis Afrique Presse 2011a; Union Européenne 2011). Not confident in the party, and presented with plenty of alternatives, the electorate abandoned the MDS. Hence, the party once feared by the regime for its mobilization capabilities managed to attract a meager 0.5 percent of the valid votes cast, resulting in only two seats in parliament for the party. In contrast to the MDS, the Ettajdid did not seek to solve its problems by making leadership changes, but embarked instead on an expansion strategy as it entered into an electoral alliance with a number of so-called “initiatives” and other smaller parties (all of them new). The Pole Démocratique Moderniste (PDM), as the new alliance was baptized, was an ill-fitting collection of parties that shared the ambition of preventing the Islamists from obtaining a victory in the elections. Apart from that, the parties had very little in common, which helps explain why the PDM fared so badly, securing only five seats in parliament. Of these, two went to the Ettajdid, meaning that the party commanded 0.9 percent of the seats in the

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new legislature, the exact same share as it had controlled following the previous legislative elections of 2009. In other words, the party’s vote-seeking strategy had not worked out very well. While the MDS and the Ettajdid fared badly, they at least managed to obtain seats in parliament, which is more than what can be said of four of the other previously relevant parties. Unable to distance themselves from the Ben Ali regime, unfamiliar with vote-seeking, and lacking clear political profiles, the Parti Social Démocratique Libéral (PSDL), the Parti des Verts pour le Progrès (PVP), the Parti de l’Unité Populaire (PUP), and the Union Démocratique Unioniste (UDU) all failed to win even a single seat. In the post–Ben Ali era, the successful charismatic leaders were all familiar faces at the national level who either had access to large funds or had a clear opposition profile, none of which described these former Ben Ali satellites. The previously insignificant. On the basis of the above, one could easily jump to the conclusion that the electorate wanted fresh blood in the sense of parties that had not previously contested legislative elections. Yet, that is not entirely true. Two parties, which were part of the legal opposition during the reign of Ben Ali, but who had performed poorly at election time, suddenly became relevant following the first post–Arab Spring elections. The Forum Démocratique pour le Travail et les Libertés (FDTL) and the PDP, which had not previously succeeded in securing any seats, each won a respectable share—the FDTL 9.2 percent and the PDP 7.4 percent. Somehow, despite the fact that both parties did not belong to the genuine opposition, the electorate viewed the FDTL and the PDP as far enough removed to be deserving of votes (Chouikha 2004: 365–366). The smaller of the two parties, the PDP, was formed by the lawyer and former Marxist Néjib Chebbi in 1983 under the name of the Rassemblement Socialiste Progressiste (RSP), but it did not obtain legalization until 1988 at the time of the tentative political opening.5 Over the years, the party maintained a consistent line of critical engagement, attempting to build bridges within the opposition (between Marxists and Islamists), and seeking to influence the regime by participating in elections, although the party withdrew at the very last minute on one occasion, and its presidential candidate was excluded on another (Braun 2006: 31; Chouikha 2004: 364, 367).6 Hence, although the party was a personal vehicle like most of the other parties, the PDP stood out somewhat in that its political approach was not only consistent, but also oppositional, and furthermore the party did not trace back to the regime in any way. The FDTL, on the other hand, was another fission. In fact, it was the result of a series of fissions within the regime party, the FDTL springing from the MDS, itself a Parti Socialiste Destourien (PSD) offshoot. The

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FDTL was established by Mustapha Ben Jaafar in 1994, two years after he had been expelled from the MDS for disagreeing with the party leader’s very progovernment line. Hence, in comparison to the MDS, the FDTL was much more oppositional, which is undoubtedly also why the party was denied legalization on three occasions, before finally receiving the elusive seal of approval by the ministry of the interior in 2002, some eight years after its establishment (Chouikha 2004: 363; Camau and Geisser 2003: 233–234). The FDTL, despite its critical stance toward the regime, never developed into much of a force. The party did not have a clear program, and its activities were heavily centered around the persona of Ben Jaafar, who was much less charismatic than Moncef Marzouki, the leader of the FDTL’s closest rival, the CPR, which had been legalized a year prior to the FDTL (Camau and Geisser 2003: 234, 236, 252).7 The previously excluded. As argued previously, the CPR was a personalistic party from the outset. The party evolved around Marzouki, who with his calm but persistent criticism of the regime, his elegance, and his unquestionable commitment to human rights causes, appealed to many people. Hence, when it became clear that the civilian unrest was of such strength that Ben Ali would either have to introduce genuine reforms or depart, there was no doubt in most people’s minds that the time had come for Marzouki and his CPR, just like it had come for Rachid Ghannouchi’s Ennahda. The two party leaders were well-known faces across Tunisia, their parties had been established quite some time ago, and both the CPR and the Ennahda had remained within the radical opposition in the sense that they refused to compromise and enter into a pact with the regime. It was not until the fall of Ben Ali that the party leaders could return to Tunisia after several years in exile, and a further two months were to pass before the parties obtained legal status: the Ennahda on March 1, and the CPR a few days later on March 8, 2011 (L’Expression 2011; Agence France-Presse 2011e). As expected from the day that the legislative elections were first announced, both parties did very well in the contest, the CPR winning 13.4 percent of the seats, while the Ennahda captured a staggering 41 percent. Taking into consideration the above-average performance of other previous opposition parties (i.e., the PDP and the FDTL), it was clear that the electorate was principally endorsing those parties that they identified as having been in genuine opposition to Ben Ali, rather than the new parties emerging in the wake of the old regime’s fall, or parties/alliances whose main defining character was opposition to the Ennahda.8 The newcomer. There was one more party that also did well—exceptionally well, in fact. The PP, which was created in early 2011 by Hachmi Hamdi, the owner of the London-based television station al-Moustaquilla,

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was an overnight success as the party secured no less than 12 percent of the seats, making the PP the country’s third force, not far behind the CPR.9 The PP’s main forte was not the fact that the party did not have any ties to the Ben Ali regime as it was externally created; rather, it was the reality that its founder was tremendously wealthy. The PP did not have a coherent party program, and the populist promises made by the party during the campaign were extremely far-fetched. Rather depressingly, the PP—the only sizeable newcomer—was simply yet another party based around a charismatic leader, albeit one who was beamed onto satellite TV every single day, unlike most of the other party leaders (Auffray 2011).10 In addition to the advantage of its leader’s owning a TV station, the PP benefited from the fact that the party was an Islamist alternative to the Ennahda, catering to those who would like to see Islamist forces running the country, but were more comfortable with a less conservative entity.

Tunisia in the Wake of the 2011 Elections Barely a year after the fall of Ben Ali, Tunisia was a very different place politically. Numerous political parties had been formed in the new free environment, competitive elections had been held successfully, and the country had gained a new political system in which political bargaining would officially play a central role. Political bargaining was necessary because none of the many parties contesting the elections obtained an absolute majority in parliament and the country’s president did not come from the largest party, that is, the party dominating the cabinet. (S)electing a President

Having just held competitive legislative elections that had been highly praised by international observers as being genuinely democratic, the next step in the transition process was for the newly elected parliament to elect an interim president, who would serve until a new constitution had been adopted. Once a new constitution was in place, presidential elections would be held, and the post would be awarded to the candidate winning the support of the electorate, thereby affording the new president (and the political system) more legitimacy. Although several candidates put their name forward, once the CPR’s Marzouki had officially declared himself a candidate, very few observers afforded any of his rivals much of a chance given Marzouki’s opposition credentials during Ben Ali’s regime and his broad appeal. As it turned out, Marzouki ended up being the sole candidate, a reality that provoked some of his rivals to make accusations of the vote being just a façade and not that

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dissimilar to the situation during previous presidential elections (Dami 2011). Taking into account that the other nine candidates were all disqualified because they did not fulfill the criteria to run for the office of president, and given that meeting these criteria was hardly an arduous task, the accusations were rather unjustified.11 Moreover, those voicing their displeasure with how the president was elected were only a minority. Hence, on December 13, 2011, Marzouki was elected interim president with 153 votes in favor of his candidacy, 3 against, 2 abstentions, and 44 blank votes (Le Monde with AFP 2011b). The Cabinet Formation Process

Despite the legislative elections taking place at the end of October, the cabinet formation process had not officially begun by early December as it fell upon the president, who had not yet been elected, to task someone with forming a cabinet. With the Ennahda’s blazing victory it was clear to everyone that it would be the party’s secretary-general, Hamadi Jebali, who would be offered the task, and speculations as to the composition of the government and the cabinet were already running into overdrive by the time Marzouki formally asked Jebali on December 14, only a day after taking office (Ben Mahmoud 2011; Saint-Léger 2011). Most observers were expecting Jebali to go down one of two routes: to appoint a government with his more closely associated former opposition partners, or to appoint a “government of national unity” encompassing the Ennahda, the CPR, the FDTL, and the PDP, which together controlled 71 percent of the seats in the legislature. A coalition of national unity would have been tremendously strong in terms of seat share, but the fit was not great in terms of political outlook, and furthermore, the PDP’s Chebbi had made it clear before the elections that although his party was not against Islamist parties and would respect the wishes of the electorate, he would not be entering into any coalition with the Islamists (Jeune Afrique with AFP 2011). While speculations were rife that Chebbi would change his mind if invited to form a grand coalition of unity, neither the PDP nor the Ennahda was keen on joining forces. Hence, the new government negotiated by the Ennahda comprised only the CPR and the FDTL, a reality that made for a much more coherent coalition than if the Marxist-inspired PDP had also joined (Reuters 2011; Ben Mahmoud 2011).12 Although the two were supposed to be independent of each other, the distribution of posts among the new coalition partners clearly reflected the reality that the CPR already held the presidency. Hence, the CPR was not only afforded fewer portfolios than the Ennahda, but also fewer than the FDTL, with the Ennahda taking fourteen and the FDTL five, while the CPR held only four. In addition to these, seven cabinet portfolios went to tech-

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nocrats, resulting in a cabinet consisting of thirty members. The Ennahda took virtually all key portfolios, that is, the prime minister, the minister of the interior, the minister of justice, and the minister of foreign affairs, although the post of minister of defense went to Abdelkrim Zbidi, one of the technocrats.13 The Dynamics of the Political System in the Immediate Aftermath of the Elections

On the basis of the above, it appears fair to conclude that the Ennahda and the CPR had negotiated a clear distribution of power: the Ennahda would dominate the cabinet, albeit with some input from its junior partners, while the CPR would concentrate on the presidency. While this setup may not have made everyone happy as negotiations had clearly taken place and some trade-offs had been made between the two partners, reality was that this arrangement was a rather good basis from which to take the democratization process forward. Although holding the presidency, the CPR was dependent upon the support of its allies in parliament, and with regard to the Ennahda, the party did unquestionably dominate the cabinet, but it would still have to confer with its allies and ensure that it did not alienate them to the point where they would exit the partnership.14 In other words, in contrast to the situation prior to the eruption of the Jasmine Revolution, where the ruling party did not have to engage in bargaining with any of the other parties, and during which the president’s powers were all-encompassing, this was no longer the case. Moreover, the previously powerful police had lost almost all of its powers, as had other organs of state repression, although the role of the army was clearly on the rise as the latter was seen as the hero of the revolution for refusing to crack down on the protesters (Hanlon 2012: 5). Safeguarding Democracy? The New Constitution

The holding of legislative elections, the formation of a new government, and the appointment of yet another interim president took some of the pressure off the country’s politicians, but only slightly. New parliamentary elections, as well as direct presidential elections, were scheduled to take place as soon as a new constitution had been adopted, no later than 2014, but preferably much sooner. Hence, the heat was on to draft the constitution as quickly as possible, albeit a constitution that the various parties could reach an agreement on (thereby avoiding a constitutional referendum) and, more important, a constitution that would prevent the regression to authoritarian rule. Given the strong performance of the Ennahda in the 2011 legislative elections, it appeared a distinct possibility that the party would also win di-

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rect presidential elections. Hence, with the very probable scenario of a president and prime minister coming from the same party, and with the heavy presence of the Islamists in parliament, several observers (whether inside Tunisia or abroad) took a profound interest in the drafting of the new constitution, particularly with regard to the status of the sharia and, of course, the issue of the separation of powers, as they were keen to ensure a counterbalance to the government. The issue of the sharia was undoubtedly the least important of the two given the reality that most Arab countries either cite the sharia as “a” source of legislation, the “principal” source of legislation, or, as in the case of Saudi Arabia, the “only” source of legislation (Brown, Hamzawy, and Ottaway 2006: 9; Baamir 2010: 32). In other words, it was always evident that the sharia would come to play some role (as it had in the past), but the extent to which was unclear.15 The role of sharia, however, would not depend so much upon the wording of the constitution, as Tunisia was never going to emulate Saudi Arabia, but on societal pressure on the legislators and the judiciary, a reality that has seen the influence of the sharia vary considerably from one country to another in the Arab world (Brown, Hamzawy, and Ottaway 2006: 8–10; Baamir 2010: 32). In contrast to the status of the sharia, the choice of political system was of critical importance. The decision of whether to opt for presidentialism, parliamentarism, or semipresidentialism was one that would come to shape politics in Tunisia in the foreseeable future. To many Tunisians, the right system was one that would prevent the regression to authoritarianism, while for others, the main concern was more immediate, namely, to ensure that the Islamists would not have a free rein in running the country. The political parties catering to the latter segment of the population (mainly the smaller secular parties), as well as several of those parties that had survived Ben Ali’s regime without being forced into a clandestine existence, argued in favor of maintaining a presidential system (Fitouri 2012; Pickard 2012).16 A presidential system would guarantee some continuity with the past, would provide the head of state with popular legitimacy from having been directly elected, would ensure some degree of stability due to fixed terms in office, and finally, would provide some degree of presidential veto power and legislative initiative, thereby ensuring a counterweight to the government if the president and prime minister did not originate from the same party. A presidential system could also potentially provide the country with a unifying figure, which would further assist in fostering stability and help the country move forward in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution.17 To some of the other parties, most notably those that had suffered extensively under Ben Ali’s regime and had subsequently done well when new institutions were established following the dictator’s exit in 2011, the view of presidentialism was rather different. While these parties, most notably the

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CPR, the FDTL, but also the PDP and the AT, were also concerned with ensuring the separation of powers, they were equally intent on preventing the repetition of the past in which a single individual dominated the political system (Fitouri 2012; Pickard 2012).18 Consequently, these parties argued in favor of a semipresidential system, which would provide for a popularly elected president with considerable powers, although the government would consist of a cabinet formed by a prime minister. Moreover, this type of system would also allow for the dismissal of the government by a parliamentary vote of no confidence, thereby providing further checks than under a presidential system, where the terms in office are fixed (Duverger 1980: 166).19 The motive behind the strong push for semipresidentialism by the major opposition parties and two of the members of the so-called governing troika was not just a desire to prevent the regression to authoritarianism under a strong president. A further objective was to ensure that the Ennahda would be kept in check, something that the parties feared would be more difficult to ensure under a parliamentary system due to the strong popular support for the Ennahda (Fitouri 2012; Pickard 2012; Chatham House 2012).20 Taking into consideration this latter point, the adoption of a semipresidential system, however, appeared almost equally as risky as going down the route of presidentialism due to the president being popularly elected under both systems. Given the Ennahda’s spectacular performance at the polls in the legislative elections of 2011, the party undoubtedly stood a very good chance of winning a popular presidential contest. Hence, choosing semipresidentialism could very well result in the creation of a system that did, indeed, on paper have a stronger separation of powers than parliamentarism, but perhaps not so much so in practice if the party dominating the cabinet also held the presidency. In such a situation (depending on the details governing the powers of each of these institutions), one party would have amassed enormous political power, giving it free rein to govern the country without much opposition. The only advantage vis-à-vis presidentialism would be the possibility of a vote of no confidence in the government, but such a vote could prove exceedingly difficult if the dominant party, like the Ennahda following the 2011 elections, sat on nearly a majority of the seats in the legislature. With the strength of the Ennahda in mind, the best way of preventing the regression to an authoritarian system of government dominated by a single party seemed to be parliamentarism as suggested by the Ennahda (Fitouri 2012; Pickard 2012). Under a parliamentary system, the president would play a rather ceremonial role, leaving executive powers in the hands of the cabinet, which would, of course, be dominated by the strongest party—at this moment, the Ennahda, which is undoubtedly why the party is so keen on the idea. That said, while the largest party would be able to dominate the executive under parliamentarism, no single individual would

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be afforded the same position; extensive powers would be afforded the executive and the legislature, but not the president. Moreover, unlike the fixed terms of presidentialism, it would technically be possible for the legislature to bring down the executive, something that even members of the dominant ruling party might be willing to do should their own prime minister prove too eager to amass personal power at the cost of other members of the cabinet. The case of Jebali’s failed cabinet reshuffle and subsequent more or less forced resignation in February 2013 illustrates this point.21 The Election Framework

There is no disputing that the workings of a political system, whether a case of presidentialism, semipresidentialism, or parliamentarism, are largely determined by additional factors, most notably the election framework. With regard to presidentialism, whether a president is elected in a plurality vote or majority vote has profound implications on the character of the party system, as does the timing of the presidential elections, that is, whether they take place in conjunction with the legislative elections or not (Jones 1994). Hence, while the decision by the members of the committee drafting the new constitution as to which political system should be adopted in Tunisia in the future is unquestionably highly significant, the outcome of subsequent negotiations on the nature of the election framework is equally important. Although this is not the place to go into much detail regarding the election framework, it is still important to underline how paramount it is that the election code ensures the survival of the multiparty system. And by multiparty system, I do not simply mean a limited one, but rather a case of “extreme” pluralism, albeit not one that is too large (i.e., a party system with six to eight relevant political parties), thereby hopefully guaranteeing that coalition government becomes the order of the day. This appears to be not only the best bulwark against a regression to authoritarianism, but also the surest way to gain broad popular legitimacy, although this type of system is unquestionably less efficient, and also more unstable, than one-party rule.22

Conclusion and Perspectives The Tunisian party system and political system have both changed considerably since the Jasmine Revolution. The political system is arguably much more democratic than at any other point in the postindependence period, with clear separation of powers, a legislature elected via free and fair competitive elections, and an executive formed on the basis of the election results. And although the interim president was only indirectly elected (by the legislature), his term is genuinely fixed.

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More important, however, uncertainty and bargaining have become key elements of the political process. Gone are the days when the head of state could simply dictate the political agenda personally and have it executed by his cronies—as of the Jasmine Revolution, coalition building and consensus have become buzzwords. This change has by no means been an easy process, as the constitutional fracas has clearly demonstrated. Although the Ennahda is immensely strong, commanding in excess of 40 percent of the seats in parliament, the party cannot go it alone but needs the support of its coalition partners or, indeed, members of the opposition, should their partners within the troika desert them. As the debate over the most suitable political system for the country has highlighted, members of the governing coalition are more than ready to vote against the Ennahda should their policy preferences more closely match those of the parties within the opposition. For instance, the CPR argued that the party would not hesitate in forming an alliance with members of the opposition in order to ensure the adoption of semipresidentialism rather than parliamentarism (Fitouri 2012). Unlike in the past, uncertainty has become a rather prominent element in Tunisian politics, bearing witness of a more democratic situation at present, but also a much more volatile and potentially fragile one. A Further Note on Presidentialism: The Issue of Fragility

Prolonged negotiations over policies within the cabinet, followed by heated discussions in the legislature, are often a quick way to loss of popular legitimacy, even though new legislation is eventually adopted and implemented or, in parliamentary regimes where conflict exists between the executive and the legislature, either the former or the latter is replaced, thereby hopefully resulting in better conditions for bargaining (Cheibub 2006). In presidential systems, however, there is no escaping the deadlock due to the fixed terms in office. Hence, presidential systems in which the president is only bestowed relatively moderate powers and minority presidential systems are particularly vulnerable, as the only way of bringing the deadlock to an end is a coup d’état. In the previous sections, some arguments against the adoption of a presidential system in Tunisia have already been put forward. The main issue was not that of political deadlock, however, but that of the danger of the concentration of political power in the hands of one party as during the authoritarian regimes of the past. Given the fact that in presidential systems the only way to bring a genuine deadlock to an end is an overthrow of the regime, there is clearly a second equally powerful argument against maintaining presidentialism. Taking into account the political history of Tunisia, as well as that of several of its neighbors, it would be foolish to rule out a coup by forces within the army, which, as already mentioned, is viewed as

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one of the principal heroes of the Jasmine Revolution. At present, such a scenario seems somewhat unlikely given that the army does not have any direct representatives within the cabinet, and the fact that political deadlock is not yet a genuine issue. However, a parliamentary system would provide dissatisfied Tunisians, whether within or outside of parliament, with the opportunity to replace an inefficient executive via democratic means. The Nature of the Political Parties: How Much Change?

While political deadlocks could potentially lead to a loss of popular legitimacy and, therefore, the risk of a strongman (perhaps backed by the army) attempting to take over, this is still only a rather hypothetical risk to the next step of the democratic process, the so-called consolidation phase, where democracy in the words of Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan (1996: 5) becomes “the only game in town.” A very real and immediate threat to the consolidation of democracy in Tunisia is the lack of political parties that take their representative functions seriously. While the political system has become much more democratic, and although the party system has grown considerably, thereby making it more democratic because the electorate is now presented with choice, the components within the system have not changed fundamentally. This is not to say that following the Jasmine Revolution and the exit of the Ben Ali regime the parties are not fulfilling more of the functions traditionally ascribed political parties. Rather, it is simply a statement of the fact that while the parties appear to be relishing their newfound ability to fulfill their procedural functions (i.e., the recruitment of political leaders, the nomination of persons to public offices, and the organization of parliament and government), they are still not emphasizing their representative functions. As already noted previously, during the elections the parties were difficult to distinguish from one another as the political programs were so vague, hence, the main defining feature of the parties remained the party leader and the extent of his/her charisma. In other words, although the parties were now free to contest truly competitive, free and fair legislative elections, which would serve as the basis for government formation, the parties still did not value the electorate. Of course, as a consequence of these developments, all of the parties had moved in a more vote-seeking direction, but only superficially, so that they attempted to conquer votes by spending large sums of money rather than seeking to establish roots in society by mobilizing the citizenry. All of the relevant parties, and particularly the new entry (the PP), operated as classic cartel parties with capital- (rather than labor-) intensive campaigns. This, however, is not to say that all of the relevant parties were officeseeking. The Ettajdid and the MDS were both vote-seeking already during

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the campaign stage as both parties had no hope of gaining office, partly because they were unlikely to capture a sizeable share of the seats up for contestation, but also because neither party made a good coalition partner for the predicted winners due to their political past. In contrast to the Ettajdid and the MDS, both the PP and the PDP had ambitions of office, but they failed in reaching their objectives. The PDP, convinced that the party would emerge from the elections as the country’s strongest force, followed a rather risky strategy (Agence France-Presse 2011f). In an effort to set itself apart, as already mentioned above, party leader Chebbi publicly announced that he would not even entertain the idea of a coalition with the Ennahda, and that he would rather join forces with the opposition should the Islamists win. This was clearly not office-seeking behavior, but an attempt to gain office as a result of vote-seeking. The PP, on the other hand, was much more mellow and would undoubtedly have considered an offer had one been extended. However, the party would have made for an exceedingly poor coalition partner for the Ennahda in particular, as the PP could be characterized as somewhat of a rival because it also had Islamist credentials. More important, the PP was also outrageously populist, its program was vague and completely unrealistic, and its leadership had no political history and therefore no substantial legacy. The party could only hope to gain office via the polls, not as a consequence of political bargaining, hence the party’s extremely capital-intensive campaign.23 The only parties for which an office-seeking strategy did not appear risky were the Ennahda, the CPR, and to a certain extent the FDTL, which were all predicted to do well due to their considerable popular legitimacy. These three parties had not only been in opposition to the Ben Ali regime, although some more than others, they were also largely seen as heroes of the Jasmine Revolution together with other institutions such as the UGTT and the army. Hence, although all three parties contested the elections vigorously, it was always suspected that the Ennahda and the CPR would join forces in the wake of the poll, potentially also including the smaller FDTL for a slightly broader (yet still coherent) government, as well as increased stability and power in terms of number of seats commanded. In short, already during the election campaign, those voting for these three parties were aware that they were not just voting for a single party, but for an asyet-undeclared alliance. The Prospects for Democracy in Tunisia

Based on the analysis in this chapter and Chapter 5, it appears fair to conclude that the fall of the Ben Ali regime ushered in a number of significant changes, most importantly the transition to democracy. Yet, that said, the prospects for the future of democracy in Tunisia could have been better, if

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one is to judge on the basis of the behavior of the country’s relevant political parties. From the perspective of citizen representation, this behavior has been far from excellent as the parties are unquestionably not taking their representative functions seriously. Whereas in the past the political parties could have excused themselves somewhat by referring to the severely authoritarian nature of the regime, this was no longer the case following the Arab Spring; hardly any limits were imposed with regard to the character of the country’s political parties. In other words, the decision to neglect the formulation of clear party programs, and the failure to establish anything but feeble ties with the general population outside of election time, were choices made by the parties themselves. This reality necessarily provides a rather pessimistic indication about the future of democracy in Tunisia—not in the sense that there is likely to be a breakdown of democracy, but because the kind of democracy that appears to be consolidating is a very hollow one. Yes, elections are free, fair, and competitive; the elected government has effective power to govern; basic civil liberties seem to be respected. But where does all this lead to if the parties are not responsive to the electorate? Even after the Jasmine Revolution, the voice of the citizenry has not appeared to have been taken seriously by the main actors within the political system; hence, at present, rather than being brokers between civil society and the state, the parties can most accurately be described as agents of the state. This role is similar to that played by the parties in the past, although the tasks have changed given the new regime format.

Notes 1. All references to election results in this chapter are based on the data presented in Appendix B. 2. See Carter Center (2012). It is worth noting that according to a survey by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, very few Tunisians appeared to be highly preoccupied with the upcoming elections as a large proportion of respondents did not know when the elections were scheduled to take place, and an equally large segment did not know what type of elections were being contested (IFES 2012: 12). 3. The Ettajdid was part of the Pole Démocratique Moderniste (PDM) electoral alliance, which won 2.3 percent of the seats—namely, five. Of these five seats, two went to members of the Ettajdid (Ahmed Brahim and Samir Taieb), while a third, which has not been counted here, went to Nadja Chaâbane, a known supporter of the party’s leader. The PDM included the following parties: the Ettajdid; the Parti Socialiste de Gauche (PSG); El Wifek Joumhouri; la Voie du Centre; and l’Initiative Citoyenne. In addition to these five parties, four movements were part of the PDM. These were Assez de divisions; Allons de l’avant!; Appel pour un pole démocratique progressiste et culturel; and le Collectif National des Indépendants du Pole et Ligues des Indépendants du Pole. 4. Ennahda has been counted as established in 1979. See Chapter 5 and Figure 5.2 for more on the formation of the party. Only three parties—the Ennahda, the

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Congrès pour la République (CPR), and the al-Aridha (PP)—secured in excess of 10 percent of the seats. See Appendix B. 5. The RSP became the PDP in 2001. 6. Chebbi played a key role within the 18 Octobre Collectif mentioned in Chapter 1. 7. For an illustration of how internal rivalry has split and weakened the opposition, please refer to Gobe and Geisser (2006). 8. Given the lack of clear party programs, the legislative elections were mainly contested on the basis of the various parties’ positions vis-à-vis the Islamist Ennahda, which was expected to win, and a given party’s relationship with the Ben Ali regime. 9. Please note that the PP had eight seats invalidated by the l’Instance Supérieure Indépendante des Élections (ISIE) shortly after the elections, but the party contested the verdict and had seven returned. The eighth went to the PDP (Dubruelh 2011). It is also worth noting that ten of the PP’s parliamentarians defected in December 2011 due to differences with party leader Hamdi. The ten defectors—led by Abdelmoomen Krir—set up their own group in parliament and pledged their continued loyalties to the principles of the PP, although rumors were rife that they were about to join the Union Patriotique Libre (UPL) (Abid 2011). 10. The PP candidates hardly participated in the national political debates, however. See Auffray (2011). 11. One candidate did not meet the age criteria (minimum age of 35 years), while the other eight did not manage to collect the required signatures of fifteen members of the constituent assembly. 12. Although Ghannouchi and Chebbi had experiences of working together in the 18 Octobre Collectif. 13. For the complete list of cabinet members, please refer to the portal of the presidency of the government at http://www.pm.gov.tn/pm/actualites/actualite.php ?id=5168&lang=fr (accessed June 8, 2012). 14. This point was clearly illustrated when Prime Minister Jebali attempted to reshuffle the cabinet in early February 2013. Jebali argued for the need of a new cabinet composed almost entirely of technocrats—a move that was vehemently opposed not only by the FDTL and the CPR, which withdrew from the governing coalition, but also by influential figures within his own party. In the end, Jebali had to resign, having tied his government leadership to the cabinet reshuffle (Amara 2013; Ayari 2013; Bone 2013; Kozlowski 2013). Upon Jebali’s resignation, President Marzouki asked the Ennahda’s Ali Larayedh—the former minister of interior— to form a new cabinet. Initially, commentators saw this as a move to the right, but after the composition of the new cabinet was made public on March 8, most were in agreement that Larayedh’s appointment hardly constituted a break with the past as the new cabinet was virtually identical to the Jebali cabinet, save for a few more technocrats. Upon his acceptance of the post of prime minister, Larayedh declared that his cabinet would resign by the end of the year (Byrne 2013; Dahmani 2013; France 24 2013; Najjar 2013). 15. In the end, the decision was made by the Ennahda not to press for the sharia being mentioned in the constitution at all, as the party came to the conclusion it was better not to mention the sharia than to mention it in vague terms (Pickard 2012). 16. Please note that the new constitution is virtually exclusively drafted by the political parties. Civil society and the general population have hardly been included in the process, a fact that has been criticized by various observers, among them Amnesty International and the Carter Center (Amnesty International 2012; Carter Center 2012, 2013).

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17. For an excellent volume on presidentialism and parliamentarism, see Cheibub (2006). 18. In the aftermath of the 2011 legislative elections, the PDP and the AT, along with a number of smaller parties, entered into an alliance, the Parti Républicain (Republican Party). 19. For more on semipresidentialism, see Elgie (2011) and, in a Tunisian context, Choudhry and Stacey (2013). 20. Some people fear that the Ennahda has only moderated its rhetoric over the years in order to become politically acceptable, and therefore able to gain power. Once in power, the fear is, the party would show its true, highly conservative Islamist colors. This is an argument similar to the one put forward by many with regard to Turkey at the time when the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) was becoming a prominent actor within Turkish politics. However, in the case of the AKP, the fears initially seemed unfounded. Recent developments, most notably with regard to the issue of abortion, point in a somewhat different direction, though. With regard to the situation in Tunisia, Jebali’s attempt to form a cabinet of technocrats in early 2013—a move that was met with staunch opposition from all fronts, including his own party—indicates that the fears of authoritarian regression are by no means unfounded. However, given the Ennahda’s response to Jebali’s dealings, the threat of authoritarian regression does not appear to have a particularly Islamist slant. 21. It was announced in early August 2012 that the draft new constitution would not be ready until April 2013, some six months later than scheduled. One of the main reasons behind the delay was disagreement over the character of the new regime—that is, whether to opt for presidentialism or parliamentarism (Le Monde with AFP 2012). The presidential elections would be postponed correspondingly. In March 2013, the speaker of the assembly, Mustapha Ben Jaafar, affirmed that a referendum on the new constitution was likely to be held in late June or early July 2013, with legislative elections to follow between October and December 2013 (Agence Tunis Afrique Presse 2013b). Finally, on June 1, 2013, the final draft of the constitutional text was made available. If eventually adopted in its current format, it will provide for a (semi-)presidential system in line with the preference of the majority of the country’s political parties (Radio France Internationale 2013). 22. In other words, along the lines of an electoral system of the proportional representation kind, with district magnitudes of a considerable size (probably in the region of 4–6), and utilizing a threshold of at least 5 percent of the valid votes cast at the national level. Such a system would ensure a multiparty system, albeit not an atomized one, and coalition government, as no single party would (be at all likely to) win an absolute majority. 23. Please note that on April 28, 2013, Hamdi resigned as party leader and the PP was dissolved. The decision was made by the party leadership, which declared that the PP was being marginalized. On May 22, 2013, Hamdi announced the formation of a new party, al-Mahaba (or “Love” in English) (Laidi 2013; Agence Tunis Afrique Presse 2013a).

7 Party Politics in Algeria Before the Arab Spring

Algeria is perhaps the most interesting of the three Maghrebi cases because the country’s political system is so complex, which seems somewhat hard to believe at first, given that a one-party system was the order of the day for so many years. Yet, even during the one-party system, when the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) was the only legal political party for most of the period, things were never simple. Despite the FLN’s having the status of parti unique, the party was not the only powerful actor in the country; in fact, it was not even the most powerful actor. Rather, that role was attributed to the army. As the analysis in this chapter demonstrates, even when the political system was tentatively opened, the FLN and the army continued their fraught partnership, excluding all other parties from the upper echelons of power, although some were, indeed, given some lower-level access via co-optation. This state of affairs remained reality by the time the Arab Spring eventually spread to Algeria in 2011. Consequently, party politics in the postindependence period—whether the formation and development of the individual relevant parties, or the character of the party system—have been closely tied not only to events within the party landscape and within the army, but also, more importantly, to the shifting balance of power within the regime, between the FLN and the army. Hence, at the time of the last legislative elections to be held prior to the Arab Spring, Algerian politics was still very much defined by the relative power of these two actors, both in terms of the extent of their reform orientation and the strategy adopted by the various relevant parties vis-à-vis the two core components of the regime. 133

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Party System Institutionalization On July 3, 1962, Algeria officially gained independence after having been part of the French colonial empire since July 5, 1830. Yet, on the eve of independence, the country did not find itself in a situation where it had to begin from absolute scratch. There was a history of political institutions, including political parties, as Algerian entities had been allowed to contest (the heavily manipulated) elections to the Algerian Assembly in 1948, 1951, and 1954 (Behr 1961: 52, 96; Cowan 1951: 354–355; Stora 2001: 26).1 Party Competition from Independence to the Arab Spring

Unlike the party systems of Morocco and Tunisia, which took on the same form in the period from independence until the last legislative elections prior to the Arab Spring—a multiparty system in Morocco, and a one-party system in Tunisia—the Algerian party system underwent significant change over the years, transforming from a one-party system to a multiparty system (see Table 7.1). During the years 1962–1987 no electoral volatility was present due to the total dominance of the FLN, not only during the single-party system,

Table 7.1 Party Competition, 1962–2007 Electoral Period

Electoral Volatility (seats)

Election Year

Effective Number of Parties (seats)a

Party System Classification

One-Party Sytem — 1962–1964 1964–1977 1977–1982 1982–1987

— 0 0 0 0

1962 1964 1977 1982 1987

1 1 1 1 1

Hegemonic Single-party system

4.1 3.2 5.6

Limited pluralism

Multiparty System 1987–1997 1997–2002 2002–2007

83.8 57.8 25.4

1997 2002 2007

Extreme pluralism

Source: See Appendix C. Note: a. The 1991 elections have not been included as they were called off before the second round took place. They will, however, be discussed separately due to their fundamental importance in shaping politics from the 1990s onward.

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but also at the time of the 1962 elections, which the opposition—essentially the Parti Communiste Algérien (PCA)—was allowed to contest but chose to boycott on the grounds of electoral engineering.2 After four electoral periods with no volatility, the fifth period witnessed an extreme level of movement as the party system transformed from being a single-party system to a case of limited pluralism, a multiparty system. Whereas in the past the FLN had been the only party to contest legislative elections, that is, apart from the aborted elections of 1991, no less than ten parties and quite a number of independent candidates gained representation in parliament following the legislative elections of 1997. Hence, it was hardly astonishing that the Pedersen index for the electoral period of 1987–1997 was a hefty 83.8. Electoral volatility remained high in the sixth electoral period, although it was significantly lower than previously. While new parties succeeded in obtaining seats, and some ceased to be relevant, the vast proportion of electoral volatility was caused by voters shifting their allegiance from one party to another within the group of parties that could be classified as relevant in both the 1997 and the 2002 legislative elections. Together these parties (and the independents as a group) accounted for no less than 77.9 percent of the total net change. This pattern repeated itself in the seventh electoral period, although it is important to note that electoral volatility fell drastically, resulting in a much more respectable Pedersen index of 25.4, and that despite an increase in the effective number of parties from 3.2 to 5.6. In other words, at a time when the effective number of parties grew by 75 percent, and the party system consequently transformed from being a case of limited pluralism to extreme pluralism, the electorate seemed to have stabilized its preferences somewhat, voting principally for the larger, more established parties, most notably the FLN, the Rassemblement National Démocratique (RND), and the Mouvement de la Société pour la Paix (MSP)—the most powerful entities within the party system.3 Stable Roots in Society: The Question of Age

Because the party system took the form of a one-party system for the first few decades in the postindependence period, a first glance at the party age indicator of “seats held by parties formed before 1970” (shown in Table 7.2) is not only terribly depressing, but also very predictable. Only one party that formed prior to 1970, the FLN, managed to hold seats in parliament during the period from independence until 2007, when the last pre– Arab Spring legislative elections were held. In other words, on the basis of the data presented, only the FLN appeared to have established stable roots in society.

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Table 7.2 Seats Held by Parties Formed Before 1970 (in percentage) Party

Formation

1926–1987

1991

1997

2002

2007

FLN

1954

100

—

16.3

51.2

35.0

100

—

16.3

51.2

35.0

Combined seat share

Sources: See Appendix C and Figure 7.2.

Table 7.3, which lists the year of formation and average age of the parties winning in excess of 10 percent of the seats up for contestation in the competitive legislative elections held since independence, provides a more accurate picture of party rootedness in the decade leading up to the Arab Spring due to its emphasis on good performance at the polls, as well as age. Consequently, this measure takes into account not only the dominant position of the FLN, which allowed the party to establish strong societal links, but also the importance and longevity of other parties within the system, most notably the RND and the MSP, which, admittedly, have never taken on the mass party character of the FLN.4 A note on party rootedness. Although the two party age indicators do give some idea of party rootedness, like the FLN’s much stronger societal base vis-à-vis parties such as the RND, the MSP, and the Mouvement elIslah (MRN), the indicators miss out on the most crucial aspects of party rootedness due to the fact that the measures exclude those parties that have not gained election to parliament. In a nondemocratic state, parties with (perceived) strong societal roots are often prohibited and therefore cannot contest legislative elections, while other parties, which have managed to survive for a considerable period of time despite being oppositional, have

Table 7.3 Age of the Parties Winning at Least 10 Percent of the Seats Party

Formation

FLN RND MSP MRN

1954 1997 1990 1999

Average age

1997

2002

2007

43 0 7 —

48 5 —a 3

53 10 17 —

16.7

18.8

26.7

Sources: See Appendix C and Figure 7.2. Note: a. The MSP’s performance was borderline relevant, as the party received 9.8 percent of the contested seats.

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chosen to boycott such contests in an effort to voice their dissatisfaction with the authoritarian regime and the façade nature of elections. Hence, in the case of Algeria, the party age indicators of party system institutionalization say much more about a party’s willingness to play by the rules of the game as defined by the FLN and the armed forces, than they do about party links with society. Two parties not included in the indicators above, but which have arguably established roots in society, are the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS), which has been prohibited since 1992 due to its Islamist nature and strong performance in the first round of the aborted 1991 elections, and the Front des Forces Socialistes (FFS), the old socialist party formed in 1963 that has frequently boycotted legislative elections.5 These two parties, despite their being outside the system, remained highly relevant throughout the postindependence period. Finally, it is worth emphasizing that although it is perfectly possible to talk of party rootedness in an Algerian setting, given that a number of parties have managed to survive for a prolonged period of time, the societal links of the legal political parties (excluding the FIS) are unquestionably weak and have only grown weaker over the years. In other words, while some parties had stronger societal roots than others, none of the legal entities had established strong roots in society. An indication of the poor societal roots was given in the World Values Survey carried out in Algeria in 2002. According to the survey data, very few people had confidence in the political parties, with 52.3 percent of the respondents declaring that they had “no faith at all” in these, compared to only 19 percent indicating that they had either “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust (see Table 7.4).6 Moreover, while the FLN united large segments of the electorate initially, the party’s authoritarian nature soon alienated many voters who had dreamed of a democratic Algeria following independence, and the façade of

Table 7.4 Trust in Institutions (in percentage) Trust Institution Army Labor unions Police Parliament Government Political parties Presidency Civil society groups

A Great Deal/Quite a Lot 67.0 29.1 66.6 33.0 54.0 19.0 66.2 48.2

Source: World Values Survey Databank (dataset: Algeria 2002).

None at All 16.5 41.5 14.0 37.4 24.5 52.3 21.0 22.0

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opening the political system in the mid-1990s fooled very few, particularly taking into account the elections of 1991, which were aborted exactly because they were taking place in a free and fair setting that made it possible for a nonregime party to win. Consequently, as illustrated in Figure 7.1, voter turnout in Algeria has declined almost continually in the postindependence period prior to the Arab Spring, with the abstention rate peaking at the time of the 2007 legislative elections, when a whopping 63.3 percent of the electorate abstained. These figures do not point in the direction of the political parties having established strong societal roots. The Issue of Legitimacy: Boycotts, Coups, and Democratic Elections

The legislative elections held in the postindependence period were viewed as having very little legitimacy not only by the electorate, which failed to turn out en masse, but also by the political parties themselves. In 1962 the main opposition party, the PCA, boycotted the legislative elections as a direct consequence of the party’s being the victim of serious harassment by the FLN, which wanted the PCA dissolved and its cadres co-opted, thereby paving the way for a singleparty state (Kapil 1994: 53). Barely a year later, the latter became a reality with the adoption of the 1963 constitution, which outlawed all political parties apart from the FLN. Hence, due to opposition parties’ being prohibited at the time of the legislative elections of 1964, 1977, 1982, and 1987, no boycotts took place (see Table 7.5), and there were no real losers in the elections as all the candidates fielded were either members of the FLN or loyalists.

Figure 7.1 Abstention Rates and Invalid Votes Cast, 1962–2012

Sources: Axtman 1999: 48, 55–57; Parejo 2010: 177; Inter-Parliamentary Union (www.ipu.org); International Foundation for Electoral Systems (www.ifes.org). Note: No reliable data available for invalid votes for 1977, 1982, and 1987.

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Table 7.5 Legislative Legitimacy

Did any major party boycott the elections? Did the losers accept the results? Were the elections free and fair?

Did any major party boycott the elections? Did the losers accept the results? Were the elections free and fair?

1962

1964

1977

1982

1987

PCA

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

No

No

No

No

No

1991

1997

2002

2007

2012

Noa

No

FFS, RCD

FFS

RCD

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Nob

No

No

No

Sources: See Appendix C. Notes: a. The elections were boycotted by the PAGS, as well as the PT, both of which were relatively small entities, albeit not without some standing (Kapil 1994: 55). b. Roberts (1998) argues that the elections were heavily manipulated, while Bouandel and Zoubir (1998) do not find proof that they were, although they do not deny the possibility of rigging by the regime either.

The 1991 elections. The five legislative elections held in the period 1962–

1987 were neither free nor fair given the lack of party competition and genuine opposition candidates. At the time when the electorate went to the polls to vote in legislative elections for the sixth time, the situation had changed drastically. Following the riots of the Octobre noir of 1988, during which a disaffected population acted out its frustration with the political establishment, President Chadli Benjedid and his backers within the military and the FLN introduced a series of economic and political reforms to appease the citizenry. Among the initiatives were the 1989 constitution, the Party Act of July 5, 1989, and a number of new election codes (Stone 1997: 70–72; Werenfels 2007: 40–43).7 The end result was that the FLN lost its status as the country’s sole political party as opposition forces were no longer prohibited (Kapil 1994: 23; Axtman 2003: 21). It is important to note that while the adoption of the new election framework gave the impression that Algeria was opening up politically, it was never the intention of the regime (dominated by the army at the time) to significantly loosen its grip on power. Rather, this was an attempt to appease critics at home and abroad, while ensuring its own survival via elec-

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toral engineering (Stone 1997: 65, 69; Axtman 1999: 44; Werenfels 2007: 12, 40–43). From the perspective of President Benjedid, who was faced with a fierce power struggle within the FLN, a further objective was to strengthen his own faction. By facilitating a transition to a multiparty system, it was hoped that the opposing wing, headed by Mohamed Chérif Messaâdia, would set up a new party, which of course would not carry the same historical legacy as the FLN (Kapil 1994: 20). As it turned out, however, the regime got it badly wrong. The façade nature of the reforms fooled no one. In spring of 1991, strikes broke out across Algeria as angry citizens protested against the political manipulation by the regime, including the blatant attempt at electoral engineering, and the elections were consequently postponed (Kapil 1994: 23–24). Notwithstanding the large-scale demonstrations, and the results of the 1990 municipal elections,8 which indicated that the FLN would be entering into the contest facing a very strong FIS, the regime went ahead with the elections some six months later, albeit after some further attempts at electoral engineering.9 It appears that the army and the FLN were confident that the FLN would outperform the FIS, which was intended as a junior partner to the former in a bid to co-opt the Islamist segment of the population, while simultaneously weakening the left (Werenfels 2007: 13, 43). As is well known, the adoption of an election framework that clearly favored the largest party, coupled with the decision to let the elections be contested freely, backfired spectacularly on the regime. Able to cast a vote in free, competitive elections for the first time in postindependence history, the electorate turned out in force and voted for the FIS, not the FLN. At the prospects of an Islamist government, the military intervened on January 11, 1992, forcing President Benjedid to resign and installing in his place a new leadership, the Haut Comité de Sécurité, the following day. On January 13, 1992, the Haut Comité de Sécurité canceled the second round of the parliamentary elections and declared a state of emergency. Not long after these measures were taken, the Haut Comité de Sécurité was replaced by the Haut Comité d’État, headed by the former prominent FLN figure Mohamed Boudiaf, who had regained political clout (Ruedy 2005: 255–256; Stora 2001: 209–210). Almost immediately after assuming the country’s highest office, Boudiaf began the process of eradicating the FIS. The party was banned, and scores of its members and suspected supporters were arrested (Werenfels 2007: 44–45). The short experiment with democratic elections was over, and the legitimacy it had briefly afforded the system was completely gone. System legitimacy following the military coup. During the period from

the military coup until the parliamentary elections of 1997, Algeria formally remained a multiparty state as the military did not prohibit political

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141

activity by any of the country’s political parties besides the FIS. However, in practice, at least when it came to decisionmaking, it made absolutely no difference that several political parties remained in operation. Rather than ally with any of the established entities, President Boudiaf decided to mobilize support for the new regime by creating his own party, the Rassemblement Patriotique National (RPN), which was more of an umbrella organization. This party encompassed in excess of ten already existing parties, albeit not the FLN, which Boudiaf despised vehemently since his split from the party in the early 1960s (Ruedy 2005: 260). During the early years of the military regime, the FLN and the FFS, which had both opposed the canceling of the second round of the parliamentary elections in 1992, refused to get involved with the new regime. The two parties demanded the initiation of a true political opening, that is, an opening that also involved the FIS (Ruedy 2005: 263; Roberts 1995: 256). Following Boudiaf’s assassination on June 29, 1992, and Liamine Zéroual’s eventual takeover in January 1994, the FLN mellowed its stance as Zéroual promised to facilitate the return to civilian rule (Ruedy 2005: 265–267). However, the FFS and other skeptics did not believe that the military regime would honor its promises, and their hopes were not raised by the adoption of the 1996 constitution, which provided the head of state with effective veto power over all decisions made in the country (Ruedy 2005: 268; Axtman 2003: 19). The FFS nevertheless decided to contest the 1997 legislative elections, and although the party declared in their wake that the contest had been highly rigged, it still took the seats it had been awarded in parliament (Bouandel and Zoubir 1998: 186). Five years later, at the time of the 2002 elections, the two Berber-oriented parties, namely, the FFS and the Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Démocratie (RCD), boycotted the contest. It is important to note that this was done primarily as a response to local sentiment in the region of Kabylia, the stronghold of the two parties, rather than as a result of the persistence of authoritarian rule (Roberts 2002; International Crisis Group 2003: 8, 26–27). By the time of the 2007 elections, the RCD had ended its boycott, but the FFS maintained its position as a radical opposition party, refusing to take part in the contest on the grounds that parliament possessed no prerogatives and, consequently, its main purpose was to serve as an instrument of the incumbent regime.10

The Formation and Evolution of the Main Relevant Parties The previous discussion of the level of institutionalization of the party system during the years from independence until the outbreak of the Arab Spring has already mentioned quite a number of the relevant political parties. Yet, how these fit within the party system (i.e., their outlook, their

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links to the other parties, their relationship with the regime, etc.) has not been delved into in any greater detail. Hence, this is my task in the subsequent sections. Please note, however, that the analysis is limited to only a handful of parties. Rather than include all relevant parties, some of which have never managed to win in excess of 5 percent of the seats in parliament, and which have also never fielded a candidate in the presidential elections, the discussion focuses solely on the relatively sizeable relevant parties, namely, the FLN, the RND, the MSP, the MRN, the Mouvement de la Renaissance Islamique (MRI), the FFS, the RCD, and the Parti des Travailleurs (PT), which can be divided into three categories: the administration parties, the Islamist parties, and the secular parties (leftist and Berber) as depicted in Figure 7.2. The Administration Parties

The so-called administration parties—similar to the regime party in Tunisia and to a certain extent the makhzen parties in Morocco—include the FLN and the RND. These two parties reflect the shifting balance of power within the regime between the FLN and the army, which orchestrated the formation of the RND in 1997 (with some help from President Zéroual). The FLN—roots in the independence movement. The FLN, the main political party throughout the entire postindependence period, originated in the independence movement, a reality that helps explain why the party has always suffered from internal divisions.11 During the struggle for independence, several opposition movements of varying size emerged on Algerian and French territory. One of the most prominent was the Étoile Nord-Africaine (ENA), established by Messali Hadj in Paris in 1926—the first political party aimed exclusively at the Muslim Algerian population, although it mainly appealed to the Algerian community in France (Kapil 1994: 6, 56).12 After more than a decade abroad, Messali returned to Algeria in 1936, and due to his charismatic leadership, the ENA rapidly recruited new followers, which resulted in the party’s speedy prohibition by the French authorities. Not long after, in March of 1937, Messali responded by proclaiming the establishment of a successor party, the Parti du Peuple Algérien (PPA), which was swiftly prohibited due to its uncompromising stance against the French (Kapil 1994: 56–57; Valette 2001: 18–19). However, the PPA remained active as a clandestine party, changing significantly over the years as the balance of power within the party shifted as a consequence of the inclusion of new members and of Messali’s losing touch with the party due to prolonged periods in prison and in exile (Kapil 1994: 57). Reflecting these changes, the PPA restructured in the mid1940s, establishing in 1946 a legal political party, the MTLD (Mouvement pour le Triomphe des Libertés Démocratiques), and an armed wing, the Or-

Figure 7.2 The Evolution of the Algerian Party System 1987 elections Leftist parties

1991 elections

2007 elections

Berber parties

FAM (1993) PADS (1993) Ettihadi (1993)

MDS (1999)

RCD (1989)

MDSL (2008) PLD (2010) UDR (2012) MPA (2012)

ENA (1926) PPA (1937) AML (1944) UDMA (1946) MTLD (1946) MNA (1954) PPA (1962) PRA (1989) RND (1997)

FLN (1954) PRS (1962) FFS (1963) Islamist parties

2012 elections

PST (1989) PT (1990) PCF (1920) PCA (1936) PAGS (1966)

Regime parties

1997 elections

PNSD (1989)

MRN (1999) MSP (1996)

Note: For the clandestine entities, the year indicates that of formation. Abbreviations are defined in Appendix D.

PLJ (2009) FJD (2011) FC (2012)

TAJ (2012)

143

FIS (1989) MRI (1989) Hamas (1990)

FNA (1999)

PED (2012) UFDS (2012) PJ (2012) HFJ (2012) FAN (2012) FNJS (2012) MCL (2012) FM (2012) PK (2012)

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ganisation Spéciale (OS), the following year. The PPA’s clandestine committees continued to play a central role, overseeing the activities of the MTLD (Kapil 1994: 57; Valette 2001: 20). While the MTLD remained in operation for a number of years and also successfully contested the elections to the Algerian Assembly in 1948, it was the paramilitary OS that was to have the strongest impact on the development of the party system.13 In 1954, a number of key figures within the OS set up a committee, the Comité Révolutionnaire pour le Unité et l’Action (CRUA), with a view to reconcile the two warring wings within the MTLD, the so-called messalistes and the centralistes, the latter of which were much more radical in their approach to the struggle for independence than the Messali loyalists (Stora 2001: 38). Only a few months after its formation, the CRUA gave rise to the Comité des 22: a select group tasked with planning the armed struggle against the French, which the MTLD seemed to have lost interest in. Originally, the leadership of the Comité des 22 consisted of five men: Mohamed Boudiaf, Didouche Mourad, Mostefa Ben Boulaïd, Larbi Ben M’hidi, and Rabah Bitat. The group was soon expanded to include Krim Belkacem, Mohammed Khider, Hocine Aït Ahmed, and Ahmed Ben Bella, and together these nine men set up the FLN in the autumn of 1954. The RND—the army’s vehicle. The second regime party, the RND, was established in the late 1990s, some forty years after the emergence of the FLN. The idea to set up a further regime party with the intent of weakening the FLN vis-à-vis the army occurred around the time of the Rome summits of late 1994 and early 1995 (Addi 2006: 149–150). In a bid to strengthen the opposition and present a united front against the regime, which was dominated by the military at the time, a number of the Algerian parties and civil society organizations came together in the Italian capital to discuss a way to proceed. The negotiations culminated in the signing of the Contrat National, which committed the signatories—the FLN, the FFS, the Mouvement pour la Démocratie en Algérie (MDA), the MRI, the PT, the FIS, the Ligue Algérienne de Défense des Droits de l’Homme (LADDH), and the Jazaïr Musulmane Contemporaine (JMC)—to principles such as the renunciation of violent struggle; political pluralism; alternation of power; direct, free, and fair elections with universal suffrage; and respect for basic civil and political liberties (Roberts 1995: 242; Ruedy 2005: 266).14 The army and particularly President Zéroual were understandably unhappy with the FLN’s participation in the Rome summits. Following the signing of the Contrat National, key members of the inner circles of power surrounding Zéroual began to question the loyalty of the FLN and consequently whether it was wise to rely on the party to contest elections on the

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regime’s behalf (Addi 2006: 150; Werenfels 2007: 53). Thanks to the political grafting of Abdelhak Benhamouda, then head of the Union Générale des Travailleurs Algériens (UGTA), and general Mohamed Betchine upon Benhamouda’s assassination, the RND saw the light of day in February 1997, just a few months prior to the legislative elections (Addi 2006: 150). Given the party’s credentials and its superb performance during the contest, in which it won no less than 41.1 percent of the seats, the RND was met with some amount of bitterness and sarcasm from its closest competitors, with Boualem Benhamouda, the secretary-general of the FLN, commenting that the RND’s membership was “made in Taiwan,” while the leader of the FFS, Hocine Aït Ahmed, referred to the RND as the “Rassemblement pour la Nouvelle Dictature” (Bouandel 2003; Tahi 1997: 127). The Islamist Parties: Wide Variety

Just as the administration parties bore witness of division, so did the Islamist parties. In the postindependence period, a number of Islamist formations have existed, but only three of these, namely, the MSP, the MRN, and the MRI, could be said to be relevant at the time of the 2007 elections. These were in addition to the FIS, which was a key political actor, albeit formally outside the system.15 The FIS—the (in)famous Islamists. The FIS was the first of the Islamist parties to emerge, and as shall become evident below, both the MRI and the MSP were established as a direct reaction to the party’s formation. The FIS was created in 1989 by Abassi Madani and Ali Belhadj, bringing together activists from several clandestine Islamist movements, most notably Mustapha Bouyali’s Mouvement Islamique d’Algérie (MIA) (Kapil 1994: 40; Shahin 1998: 133; Ruedy 2005: 254). Given the reality that most of its initial members were preachers, the FIS was instantly able to mobilize large numbers, covering some 9,000 mosques across the country (Ruedy 2005: 253). While many of the party’s supporters were, indeed, highly ideologically committed, the majority were not fueled by ideology but with rage and despair, coming from the bidonvilles outside Algiers and the country’s other main cities. Here, cramped together on little space and with poor prospects for a bright future, resentment against the francophone elite ran high among the youth, and many of them consequently joined the FIS, whose leadership came across as passionate and on their wavelength (Ruedy 2005: 253).16 What mattered to many of these youths was not the party program, which was somewhat muted, but the angry rhetoric of the key figures, most notably Belhadj, who took a hard-line Islamist stance on many issues, even if it contradicted the FIS program.17

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The MRI and the MRN—Djaballah’s tolerated forces. Not long after the municipal elections of 1990, which saw the FIS humiliate the FLN with its landslide victory, the formation of a new Islamist party was declared by Abdallah Djaballah. Djaballah was himself a seasoned political activist and religious scholar who had previously been the leader of the Jama’a alIslamiyya, an Islamist movement popular among the student population in Constantine in the early 1980s, and was also one of the key figures behind the Rabitat ad-Dawa, which was established in 1988. The new party, the Harakat an-Nahda al-Islamiyya—or the Mouvement de la Renaissance Islamique (MRI) in French—was, in other words, by no means an externally created party, but an outfit put together by a central figure on the Islamist political scene (Boubekeur 2008: 4; Willis 1998). Djaballah’s standing in the community was undoubtedly one of the reasons why he made absolutely no effort to conceal that one of the key objectives behind the creation of the MRI was to weaken the FIS, which Djaballah had come to view as unaccommodating and too dominant following the disinterest by the FIS in forming an Islamic Alliance as suggested by Mahfoud Nahnah of the Mouvement Démocratique et Social (MDS Algeria) (Kapil 1994: 44–45).18 The MRI was never much competition for the FIS, however. Largely due to the party’s personalistic character, the MRI’s following was rather restricted, and in the aborted legislative elections of 1991, it only managed to win 2 percent of the valid votes cast in the first round (a performance that saw it win no seats) and was furthermore only to contest two of the runoffs.19 Notwithstanding the party’s poor performance, the 1991 elections did not spell the end of the MRI, and some six years later, at the time of the 1997 legislative elections, the party fared much better, winning 8.9 percent of the seats up for contestation. Yet, shortly after, Djaballah was the victim of a rebellion within the party. Under accusations of being authoritarian in his leadership style and unwilling to discuss the direction of the party, Djaballah was excluded from the MRI by Lahbib Adami and his supporters in 1998, but he went on to create a new party, the MRN, a year later.20 Given the personalistic character of the MRI, it was hardly a surprising development when the MRN appeared to swallow the MRI’s voters in the 2002 elections, an outcome that saw the MRN securing 11.1 percent of the seats in comparison to the 0.3 percent awarded to the MRI. Nevertheless, history repeated itself, and in 2006 Djaballah was ousted once again, this time by Djahid Younsi and his supporters (Boubekeur 2008: 4; Addi 2006: 153).21 In addition to the FIS, the MRN, and the MRI, the Islamist camp included Nahnah’s MSP, which was formally established in December 1990, not long after the birth of the MRI. The MSP—or the Harakat al-Mûjtama’ al-Islami (Hamas), as the party was originally named—was the first result of the fallout between the influential Nahnah and the FIS, initially over

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Nahnah’s failure to back the FIS in the 1990 local elections, and then the subsequent refusal by the FIS to join forces with other Islamist groupings as suggested by Nahnah in the run-up to the 1991 elections (Kapil 1994: 44–45; Shahin 1998: 123).22 Unlike the FIS, but much akin to the MRI, the MSP strongly evolved around its leader and the objective of preventing the FIS from monopolizing the Islamist scene. Yet, whereas the MRI was often incoherent in its policies—advocating on the one hand a liberal line, which allowed for a multiparty system, while arguing on the other that laïc parties should be prohibited and that the ideal Islamic state resembled the Sudan— the MSP was much more consistent (Kapil 1994: 44–45). The MSP probably gained the upper hand by coming across much more clearly in its political message than the MRI, but the main reason why the MSP emerged as the strongest rival to the FIS within the Islamist camp was undoubtedly Nahnah’s pact with President Benjedid,23 which saw Nahnah moderating his discourse and distancing himself from the regime critics in return for support from the administration (Boubekeur 2008: 3).24 The Secular Parties: Representing the Left and the Berbers

Just as tensions have always existed within the administration and Islamist camps, so have they among the so-called secular parties, as the two Berber entities, the FFS and the RCD, have been at loggerheads since a fission within the former led to the establishment of the latter. However, unlike the majority of conflicts between other closely related parties, not only in Algeria but also in Morocco and Tunisia, the tensions between the FFS and the RCD cannot simply be reduced to personal clashes and petty power struggles, as the two parties have disagreed on several occasions over the best strategy to adopt toward the regime. The FFS was established in 1963 by Hocine Aït Ahmed, a key figure within the independence movement and later the FLN. For a number of years prior to his departure from the FLN, Aït Ahmed had been a strong opponent of the line taken by President Ben Bella, whom he found to be authoritarian, not only within the party, but also in his running of the country (Ilikoud 2006: 165–166; Leca and Vatin 1975).25 Aït Ahmed was particularly concerned with Ben Bella’s decision to dissolve the PCA, the party’s main rival at the time, thereby eradicating any real opposition (Ilikoud 2006: 166; Stora 2001: 132). It soon became clear that Ben Bella was not interested in listening to opposition voices, whether within or outside of the FLN, and Aït Ahmed was effectively silenced in parliament, leaving him with no legal means of voicing opposition. Disappointed by Ben Bella’s lack of democratic vision, Aït Ahmed resigned from parliament and was expelled from the FLN in 1962, but he did by no means retire from politics, meeting in secret with various other anti–Ben Bella forces, most notably the

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Union pour la Défense de la Révolution Socialiste (UDRS).26 The fruit of their labors was the FFS. Despite strong factionalization within the FFS, particularly from the 1980s onward, more than two decades were to pass before the party splintered. Unhappy with Aït Ahmed’s refusal to return from exile and take on a more hands-on leadership of the party, a number of youth activists under the leadership of Saïd Sadi left the FFS in 1982, only a few years after they had joined the party as part of the Mouvement Culturel Berbère (MCB) (Ilikoud 2006: 170–171). Sadi’s departure did not lead to the immediate establishment of a new Berber party, rather a further seven years were to pass before the RCD was created in 1989. Like the FFS, the RCD has remained in opposition to the regime over the years, but the two parties have generally differed in their approach, as well as in their level of opposition. Whereas the FFS has consistently followed a radical line, frequently boycotting legislative and presidential elections, the RCD has tended to be more accommodating, advocating “constructive criticism” of the regime, and acting as a so-called “critical supporter” (Ilikoud 2006: 171; Le Matin DZ 2012).27 In addition to the two Berber parties, a third sizeable secular party has been a constant feature on the scene since its formation in 1990: the PT, the Trotskyist worker’s party created by Louisa Hanoune upon the remnants of the Comité de Liaison des Travailleurs Algériens (CLTA) and the Organisation Socialiste des Travailleurs (OST). The PT is somewhat difficult to place and always has been, as shall become evident in the discussion of the outlook of the parties. The party’s ideological makeup and its policies have not come together easily on more than one occasion, and the PT’s main attraction for many people could undoubtedly be boiled down to one factor, namely, Hanoune herself—a seasoned political activist with a strong presence.28

The Main Parties: Inception to the Eruption of the Arab Spring The main relevant parties emerged throughout a period stretching some forty years, the first of these, the FLN, being created in 1954, and the latest addition, the RND, being established as recently as 1997. Consequently, given the very different political environments they were born into, the parties differed in outlook at the time of their inception, and despite some homogenization in recent years, the variation in outlook among these remained quite pronounced, much unlike the situation in Morocco and Tunisia prior to the eruption of the Arab Spring.

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Responding to the Environment: Party Change Prior to the Arab Spring

Rather than looking at the parties in chronological order of formation, it makes more sense to group these according to the level of change they have undergone over the years, as well as the direction of change.29 Slight change. Beginning with those that have undergone the slightest change (which, it should be noted, does not necessarily equate to the least interesting cases), the FFS has undergone considerable transformation in terms of its focus, but not in terms of its strategy. The party initially appealed to a national segment of the population given its credentials as the anti–Ben Bella force, but as the years went by and the party was forced to concentrate on its strongest support base, the electorate in Kabylia, the FFS transformed into a Berber party with regional, rather than nationwide, appeal (Ilikoud 2006; Werenfels 2007: 72). Given the further politicization of the Berber issue in the wake of independence, particularly after the Tafsut Imazighen (Berber Spring) of 1980 and the Kabyle uprising of 2001, the FFS naturally remained a policy-seeking party, despite some developments in a more vote-seeking direction following the reintroduction of the multiparty system, which enabled the FFS to contest elections, something that was not possible at the time of its formation.30 The RCD was created at a time when the political system was undergoing a tentative political opening, and the party was accordingly able to contest legislative elections from the outset. The RCD participated in the legislative elections of 1991 as well as in the presidential elections of 1995, making the party somewhat vote-seeking at its inception. However, given the reality that the RCD mainly concentrated its efforts on the region of Kabylia, while emphasizing almost exclusively Berber issues, the RCD could most accurately be placed in the policy-seeking category. It still maintained this position in 2007 despite some signs that the party was moving in a more office-seeking direction given its propensity to vote like the administration parties in parliament (Ilikoud 2006; Werenfels 2007: 68).31 Just like the Berber parties, the two smaller Islamist entities, the MRI and the MRN, changed very little during the period from their formation until the 2007 legislative elections. Taking into account that vote-seeking did not grow much in importance since the formation of the two parties, given that they were both established at a time when the multiparty system had been reinstated, and considering that the MRI and the MRN were both highly personalistic in character, albeit with a stronger ideological commitment than a number of the other sizeable parties, the lack of party change hardly appears a great revelation. Change, regardless of in which direction,

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was unlikely to bring the MRI and the MRN any closer to power—a move in a more vote-seeking direction would not yield results given the nature of the regime and the state of legislative elections; it was highly improbable that a move in a more office-seeking direction would lead to either party’s replacing the MSP as the regime’s chief Islamist ally; and a move in a more policy-seeking (Islamist) direction was only going to remove the parties further from the echelons of power.32 In other words, the impetus for change was, at best, rather trivial. The stimulus for change within the RND was not much greater than that of many of the other sizeable parties, but not entirely for the same reasons. Established as the army’s vehicle and therefore guaranteed office at the time of its formation, as the army dominated the regime, the RND was firmly office-seeking when it first emerged.33 There was no need to appeal to the electorate and no need to formulate any policies in addition to that of keeping the army in pole position. Over the years, as the balance of power within the regime changed, so did the importance of the RND and its access to power. Hence, whether the party was to regain its influential position depended not so much upon whether the RND appealed to the electorate, but on the strength of the army within the regime, and the loyalties of those members of the army who found themselves at the very inner circle of power.34 The RND was not a party of the people at the outset, and it had no incentive to move in that direction. Significant change—from policy-seeking to vote-seeking. Taking into

account the reality that most of the sizeable opposition forces only underwent slight change prior to the Arab Spring, the question is, how come the PT transformed significantly? Why did this outfit on the far left move from being a predominantly policy-seeking party when it first emerged in 1990, to a party that could best be described as vote-seeking by the time of the 2007 legislative elections? Undoubtedly, the answer to this question is rooted in the party’s establishment as a political party. When it first emerged, it was on the remnants of highly politicized worker’s associations, which did not have to appeal to the general population as such, but to a small segment of it. As the PT consolidated itself as a political party, it naturally became more vote-seeking. Contributing further to the vote-seeking move was Hanoune’s policy of critical dialogue (or positive engagement), which essentially ruled out the use of boycotts to voice the party’s dissatisfaction with the nature of the regime (Fraternité! 2012).35 Hence, while other parties boycotted a number of legislative elections in the period following the aborted legislative elections of 1991, the PT contested every single one of them, although it stood no chance of gaining office due to its size and opposition credentials.

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Significant change—seeking office. Unlike the PT, which transformed into a vote-seeking party, the FLN and the MSP moved in an office-seeking direction. Beginning with the FLN, the party was naturally policy-seeking at the time of its inception given its strong policy profile as the main vehicle of the independence movement, and taking into account the fact that it was prevented from contesting office. This latter point also explains why the FLN could hardly be characterized as vote-seeking; although the party undeniably sought to establish a strong popular following, the FLN’s mobilizational efforts were obviously not done with a view to boost its performance at the polls. In fact, in 1954, when the FLN was formally established, it took the form of a movement rather than a political party, not only in terms of its organization, but also according to Giovanni Sartori’s criteria as discussed in Chapter 2.36 In the wake of independence and the establishment of Algerian political institutions, the FLN changed significantly in an office-seeking direction. The party emerged from the struggle for independence as the strongest political force, encompassing both the chief political personalities and the army, and it soon became clear that those at the very top were intent on maintaining the top position in Algerian politics, regardless of what means it would take. Hence, rather than battling for office in democratic elections, the FLN hampered its opponents to such an extent that vote-seeking was effectively rendered pointless. That said, for the more accommodating opposition parties, legislative elections were a means to gain some political influence, as the cases of the FIS and the MSP illustrate. As mentioned in the analysis earlier, the regime intended to utilize the hugely popular FIS to coopt the Islamist segment of the electorate in return for better access to power. Following the fall from grace of the FIS, this role was bestowed upon the MSP, the most regime friendly of the Islamist parties left on the scene.37 Hence, in 1994, the MSP entered into a pact with the regime as the party accepted cabinet portfolios, and what had started out as a vote-seeking rival of the FIS within the opposition only a few years earlier had transformed into an office-seeking party, co-opted by the regime.

Algeria Prior to the Arab Spring: Another Case of “Pacted” Politics? The reality that the sizeable relevant parties did not converge at the time of the last legislative elections to be held before the arrival of the Arab Spring in Algeria was largely a consequence of the structure of the country’s political system. Although highly authoritarian, a system of patronage did exist, which meant that some of the so-called opposition parties gained office and

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therefore access to power, while others stood no chance of acquiring direct influence. In other words, while all of these parties existed in the same political environment, their position within it (i.e., their relationship with the regime) differed significantly, and so did, consequently, their position on the survival of the regime as well as the strategies employed to fulfill their political objectives. Hence, while Algeria was indeed a case of pacted politics, the pact was not between the regime and the relevant sizeable political parties, but rather between the different elements of the regime—the FLN and the army (plus the RND)—that benefited from the perpetuation of status quo and therefore all took a hard-line stance. Hence, there were no reformers within the regime for the moderates within the opposition to negotiate a pacted transition with, that is, unless one includes the MSP, which was formally part of the regime as the party held cabinet portfolios. However, the MSP was not an influential reformist actor, and it was certainly not in any position to negotiate a pacted transition, thereby leaving the opposition with no other options but to embark on a “waiting game” given Bouteflika’s age, or to opt for the revolutionary path. Revolution, however, was deemed a “non-starter” with the memory of the civil war, which left between 100,000 and 200,000 Algerians dead, still too raw (Roberts 2007).38 The Function of Political Parties in Algeria

On the basis of this chapter’s analysis of the formation and development of the relevant political parties, as well as their position within the political system, it is fair to conclude that the function of parties in the country is far from that traditionally attributed to parties. The political parties that remained not only relevant, but also sizeable, at the time of the legislative elections of 2007, the last to take place before the eruption of the Arab Spring, did not represent the citizenry: they did not act as vehicles of citizen integration and mobilization, they did not articulate and aggregate the interests of the citizenry, and they did not formulate much public policy— the latter mainly because they were not afforded the opportunity by the regime. Similarly, the regime did not facilitate the space for the political parties to recruit political leaders and make nominations of persons to public offices, that is, apart from occasionally at the very lowest level, and the parties also did not play much of a role in the organization of parliament and government, although they were, of course, represented in both institutions.39 The question is, then, what was the function of political parties in Algeria just prior to the Arab Spring? Why were parties tolerated? And how come old parties persisted, and new ones emerged? With regard to most of the relevant sizeable parties, the answers to these questions are rather straightforward. By 2007, all of the sizeable political parties—regardless of whether they were one of the few externally created parties, or one of the many parties set up by seasoned politicians—

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were personal vehicles or, in more polite terms, cases of so-called charismatic leadership. Throughout the postindependence period, new parties were established, but none of these were primarily the result of popular pressure and a desire to act as a vehicle of citizen representation.40 Rather, with the notable exception of the RND, which was created by the army, the emerging political parties were either the product of the transformation of existing cultural, religious, or labor movements or unions (such as the PT, the FLN, and the RCD), or they were fusions—the results of fallouts within already established parties (examples include the FFS and the MRN). Moreover, these fallouts were usually not based on ideological differences, but on personality clashes and internal struggles for power, that is, personal ambition.41 Given their status as personal vehicles, most of the parties had very weak roots in society, which meant that they were of very little threat to the regime. In fact, by adopting a divide et impera strategy, which allowed the existence of opposition parties and, more importantly, several parties representing each segment of society, the regime unquestionably prolonged its own life as it created strife among the opposition parties, while also splitting the vote. Moreover, the facilitation of political pluralism, even if only notional, also appeased critics at home and abroad, and by allowing the existence of a broad range of parties, the inclusion of all segments of society was also guaranteed via the co-optation of select opposition parties.42 Hence, in 2007 political parties in Algeria served two main functions: as personal vehicles for politicians with strong political ambitions, and as a mechanism of regime survival via the division of the opposition and the effective co-optation of all segments of society.

Notes 1. The Algerian Assembly was constituted following the passing of the Organic Statute of Algeria by the French National Assembly on September 20, 1945. The statute stipulated that an Algerian Assembly of 120 members was to be set up on Algerian soil. One-half of the members were to be Muslim Algerians (the so-called second college), whereas the other half (the first college) would be made up of citizens possessing either French civil status or belonging to one of a number of special categories of Algerian citizens (Cowan 1951: 352; Stora 2001: 21, 45). 2. It is worth noting that the legislative elections held during the single-party system were not entirely without a competitive element following the adoption of the 1976 constitution. On election day, voters were presented with a list of candidates drawn up by the FLN, with three candidates put forward for each available seat. Hence, contestation was present, but only among FLN candidates, some of whom were card-carrying members, while others were not (Michel and Flory 1977: 796; Michel 1978: 475; Axtman 2003: 20). 3. As the performance of the FLN and the RND illustrates, the electorate has tended to vote for the party of the strongest faction within the regime—that is, either the FLN or the army. Hence, it is possible to talk of stability in the sense that

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the regime party has always done well, although the individual support bases of the two parties were far from stable, as illustrated by the strong variation in the parties’ seat shares from one election to another. Finally, in recent years, a significant proportion of the electorate has flocked to the MSP, which, while somewhat Islamist in orientation, is primarily a regime vehicle, which serves as a means to co-opt the Islamist segment of the electorate. The party’s actions in the wake of the Arab Spring and the run-up to the 2012 elections indicate that the MSP is beginning to steer a different course—that is, distancing itself from the regime. This issue will be discussed more extensively in Chapter 8. 4. I agree with Kapil (1994: 13) that the FLN was quite the antithesis of a mass-based party, as it was not concerned with the masses, nor did it afford the masses any decisionmaking power. However, it mobilized large segments of the population, partly due to its populist rhetoric, and the party also pervaded the daily lives of most people in some form or another due to its extensive network of patronage. See also Werenfels (2007: 35–36). 5. The FFS boycotted the legislative elections of 1997, 2002, and 2007. It is also worth noting that over the years, the FFS has mobilized tens of thousands of supporters in large protests, making the party the largest non-Islamist opposition force in the country (Addi 2006: 153). 6. In fact, the political parties were the least trusted institution out of a group that included the army, the labor unions, the police, parliament, the government, the presidency, and civil society groups. The low public trust in the representative institutions is undeniably linked to the reality that, at the time, genuine decisionmaking power and the ability to successfully implement policy lay with the upper echelons of the army and the FLN, while the political parties mainly served the purpose of giving an illusion of pluralism as discussed in this chapter. Parliament was largely a rubber stamp for the inner circle of the regime (Werenfels 2007: 69). 7. The first new election code was adopted on August 7, 1989, but was amended by law no. 90-06 on March 27, 1990, and subsequently by laws no. 91-06 and 91-17 of April 2, 1991, and October 15, 1991, respectively. While the first code awarded all seats in parliament to the party winning the majority of the valid votes cast, the amendment introduced in March 1990 reduced the share of the seats of the party winning the majority of the valid votes cast from all the seats in parliament to 50 percent plus one seat, ensuring the dominant party a majority in parliament. Hence, the final version of the code was more democratic given the application of the absolute majority rule in single-member districts (Kapil 1994: 23; Axtman 1999: 44; 2003: 21). 8. In the local elections of June 1990, the FIS won 55 percent of the municipalities and 67 percent of the wilayas. In terms of votes, the FIS won 55 percent of the valid votes cast, while the FLN only managed to secure 28 percent. Please note that the FLN and the FIS were the only two parties to field candidates in all constituencies—that is, 1,541 at the municipal level and 272 at the wilaya level (Kapil 1994: 23; Ruedy 2005: 253; Stone 1997: 72). 9. As already mentioned, the final version of the election code (law no. 91-17) was not adopted until October 15, 1991. The amendments made in the autumn of 1991 altered the allocation formula, stipulating that seats not allocated in the first round of elections, due to the failure of any of the candidates to win an absolute majority, would be contested in a second round in which the top three candidates would enter a runoff. It is also worth noting that campaigning in schools and mosques was prohibited, and proxy voting was strictly limited to Algerians living abroad, members of the army, and those too ill to vote in person. These were all measures aimed at curtailing the FIS (Stone 1997: 74; Axtman 1999: 44; 2003: 23).

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10. See “Législatives Algérie 2007: Le FFS choisit le boycott,” http://www.algerie-dz.com/article8672.html (accessed May 11, 2012). 11. The independence movement also gave rise to other parties, among them the Amis du Manifeste et de la Liberté (AML) founded by Ferhat Abbas in 1944. The AML was transformed into the Union Démocratique du Manifeste Algérien (UDMA) in 1946 following the dissolution of the former by the French authorities in 1945. 12. Please note that in line with other scholarly works on Algeria, Messali Hadj will be referred to as Messali (rather than Hadj) when mentioned subsequently. 13. In 1954, the French authorities dissolved the MTLD. In the place of the MTLD, Messali set up the Mouvement National Algérien (MNA). In 1955, the socalled centralistes left the party and joined the FLN. The MNA subsequently changed its name back to the PPA in 1962. 14. For the full text of the Contrat National (also known as the Rome Platform), see Le Monde Diplomatique, March 1995, p. 7. 15. Some also include the Parti du Renouveau Algérien (PRA) among the Islamist parties, although this is rather disputed (Lavenue 1992: 84, 98; Kapil 1994: 58–59; Roberts 2003: 130). However, as the party only managed to secure 1.0 percent of the seats up for contestation in the 2007 legislative elections, it was hardly a sizeable party and has therefore been omitted from the analysis. 16. Also supporting the FIS were many of the smaller businesses, which hoped for an end to the state-run economy and all the interference that came with it (Ruedy 2005: 253; Werenfels 2007: 43). 17. According to the political program issued in March of 1989, two of the key objectives of the FIS were the liberalization of the economy and, more importantly, ensuring that legislation in all areas conformed to the imperatives of the sharia. The program also endorsed multipartyism, and did not make negative reference to the existence of parties or movements, although Belhadj on more than one occasion argued that democracy was un-Islamic and that, if in power, the FIS would prohibit non-Islamic parties (Kapil 1994: 41). See also Labat (1995). 18. Rather, the FIS wanted to co-opt the other Islamist movements (Shahin 1998: 133). 19. All references to election results are made on the basis of the data presented in Appendix C. 20. The MRN is generally viewed as the more radical of the two. 21. Djaballah went on to create the Front pour la Justice et Développement (FJD) in 2011. The party contested the 2012 legislative elections and won 1.5 percent of the seats. 22. The Hamas became the MRI in 1996 following the adoption of a new constitution, which prohibited parties founded on a “religious, linguistic, racial, sex, corporatist, or regional basis” (Ruedy 2005: 268). Please note that the law (no. 8911) had already been adopted in 1989, but was not strictly implemented at the time—it was not, for instance, used to deny the FIS legalization (Werenfels 2007: 43, 182). 23. Some argue that Nahnah entered into a pact with Benjedid in the 1970s, and that the MSP was therefore an office-seeking administration party from the outset (Boubekeur 2008: 3). Others effectively characterize the MSP as co-opted, but underline that it had only very limited powers (Hamladji 2002: 5; Werenfels 2007: 64). 24. It is worth noting that while the MSP has clearly had a much closer relationship with the regime than the other Islamist parties, the MRI was also represented in the governing coalition following the 1997 elections (Werenfels 2007: 15). It was partly due to this decision that Djaballah parted with the MRI.

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25. There were strong disagreements between the two men already during the struggle for independence, particularly during the later years, as the different factions within the FLN fought to gain control of the party as well as its armed wing, the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN) (Ilikoud 2006: 165). 26. Albeit not including Boudiaf (Ilikoud 2006: 167; Ottaway and Ottaway 1970: 94–96). 27. The brief description by Werenfels (2007: 68) of the party’s behavior as a reliable regime backer in parliament lends support to this assessment. 28. Kapil (1994: 55) argues that the PT is essentially a personal vehicle around Hanoune, and that the party does not have any real roots in society. Werenfels (2007: 124) is in agreement. 29. The FIS has been excluded from the analysis as it was no longer a legal political party at the time of the legislative elections of 2007. 30. Taking into consideration the fact that the FFS was genuinely in opposition to the regime, it is hardly a surprise that the party was never very office-seeking. It would undoubtedly have been a pointless venture. 31. Do note that Werenfels (2007: 15) does not even categorize the RCD as an opposition party, using the term only when referring to the FFS and the PT. The MRI and the MSP are labeled “(semi-) opposition parties.” Elsewhere, Werenfels (2007: 68) states that the MSP, along with the RCD, can “best be described as somewhat paradoxical semi-contesters.” 32. This point is well illustrated by the fate of the MSP in the wake of the Arab Spring. The party resigned from the presidential alliance in the run-up to the 2012 legislative elections, joining instead the Islamist Alliance de l’Algérie Verte (AAV), which performed rather poorly, partly due to heavy manipulation of the elections by the regime. For more on this issue, please refer to Chapter 8. 33. Furthermore, as already mentioned, the incumbent president also played a significant role in the establishment of the RND. 34. For a beautifully written analysis of the politically relevant elite and hence the different circles of power, please see Werenfels (2007). Suffice it to say here that some of the key personalities within the army were FLN supporters or, at least, loyal to Bouteflika. 35. This policy of engagement did not only apply to relations with the regime, but also with other parties, such as the FIS. The PT was very outspoken in its criticism of the regime when the FIS was dissolved (Werenfels 2007: 72, 191). 36. See also Roberts (2007: 21). 37. By then, a further goal was to appease the supporters of the FIS. 38. The figure is disputed. According to Werenfels (2007: 48), the official Algerian death toll was 37,000 in 2002, while Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the US Committee for Refugees put the number at 100,000. Some advocacy groups, such as Algeria Watch, argue that 200,000 Algerians lost their lives during the civil war, which peaked during 1994–1997. 39. See also Harbi (2001); Werenfels (2007). 40. For a similar view, refer to Bouandel (2002). 41. Werenfels (2007: 124–127) concurs. 42. The co-optation of select opposition parties led to further division within the opposition as parties vied for the regime’s attention. That is, the opposition parties not only competed for the same votes at the polls, but also for the attention of the regime. This was particularly the case within the Islamist camp, where the FIS was the original pet party, only to be substituted for the more amenable MSP following the aborted 1991 legislative elections.

8 Prospects for Democracy in Algeria

This chapter discusses the Arab Spring in Algeria or, rather, the lack of it. The main argument put forward is that while events did take place in the name of the Arab Spring, these were much more muted than in the neighboring Maghrebi countries, not only in terms of the size of the various protests, but also with regard to the fierceness of their demands. Partly as a consequence of this fact, and partly due to the many petrodollars available to the regime, Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his companions easily rode out the unrest. Politically, Algeria remained much the same as it was prior to the Arab Spring. That said, the reality that the Arab Spring did not usher in political change by no means implies that the Algerian case is without interest. On the contrary, the state of the protests, the regime’s response, and the legislative elections of 2012—their nature, the results, the cabinet formation process, and the reaction by the international community—all provide an important insight into how and why authoritarian regimes survive.

Algeria and the Arab Spring The Arab Spring in Algeria was a somewhat sporadic affair in the sense that although protests took place regularly, they were not coordinated by a single group and there was no overarching consistency between the stated objectives of the various demonstrations. In other words, in Algeria there was no genuine protest movement; events were generally organized locally and centered around local demands, such as enhanced provision of electricity and better access to water. Accordingly, they did not pose much of a threat to the regime. This is not to say that no shared national objectives existed, 157

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because they certainly did, but rather that the demand for an improvement of the country’s human rights situation (i.e., respect for basic civil liberties), the formation of a new government, and the provision of more jobs, particularly for the youth, were not at the core of the protests (al-Jazeera 2012a; Boundaoui 2011; Chikhi and Lowe 2012).1 Had they been, there is every chance that a genuine national protest movement would have emerged as there would have been a strong national rallying point around which to structure regular demonstrations carrying the potential of largescale turnouts. The Protests

In mid-January 2011, not long after the protests had spilled over from Tunisia into Algeria, attempts were made to establish a national protest movement, but it never really made it off the ground. Apart from a few demonstrations in Algiers and in the region of Kabylia, which gathered at least 1,500 protesters, the majority of the rallies were rather modest in size, especially if compared to the scale of the protests in neighboring Morocco and Tunisia (al-Jazeera 2012a; Chikhi and Lowe 2012).2 This reality was partly due to the emphasis on local demands as just mentioned, but a further contributing factor was the structure of the movement. Although an umbrella outfit, comprising a number of civil society organizations, unofficial unions, as well as a few political parties, the Coordination Nationale pour le Changement et la Démocratie (National Coordination for Change and Democracy [CNCD]) was essentially a vehicle for the Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Démocratie (RCD) leader Saïd Sadi to promote himself as he attempted to gain national, rather than regional, appeal (al-Jazeera 2012a; Chibani 2011).3 The combination of Sadi’s strong profile as a Berber activist and the lack of a genuinely shared platform among the different groups of activists meant that Sadi was engaging in an uphill battle from the outset; making the transition from a regional to a national figure on the basis of a virtually nonexistent movement was always going to be near impossible.4 Hence, while Sadi by virtue of his sudden national exposure undoubtedly succeeded in attracting more supporters for the RCD among the Berber community at the expense of the Front des Forces Socialistes (FFS), he effectively weakened the CNCD in the process as the elevation of Sadi alienated many potential followers of the nascent protest movement (Boundaoui 2011).5 In other words, had the CNCD focused sincerely on its stated objective of coordinating the protests in order to strengthen their impact, rather than rapidly transforming into yet another personalistic structure, the movement might actually have consolidated (rather than split), and the protests that did take place in

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Algeria during the Arab Spring could potentially have been much greater in size.6 It would be unfair to blame the relatively modest size and fierceness of the protests entirely on Sadi, however. A further contributing factor was unquestionably the memories of the gruesome civil war still so fresh in most people’s minds. Many Algerians were fearful that political unrest would lead to further killings and perhaps even descent into another civil war. Consequently, many felt it was simply not worth rocking the boat, especially not since Bouteflika appeared to be somewhat accommodating, introducing a series of reforms with a view to appease the angry protesters and those that were contemplating joining them (Boundaoui 2011). The Response by the Regime

The regime response to the protests was swift and efficient. It did not take long for Bouteflika to announce the end of the nineteen-year-old state of emergency, as well as to introduce food subsidies and create new jobs, among other measures (al-Jazeera 2012a, 2012b). The reality that this was clearly done in an effort to ensure that the demonstrations did not escalate and spin out of control, rather than as a consequence of long-term economic and social planning, did not seem to matter to most. In a nutshell, many of the dissatisfied youths suddenly found themselves employed and, therefore, with a regular and sizeable salary, albeit without having to contribute much as there was nothing for them to do in these rapidly created artificial positions (Chikhi and Lowe 2012). Consequently, most were rather happy with the outcome, as their main concern was not an Algerian transition to democracy but their own livelihoods. Furthermore, many of those who did not benefit directly from the many new jobs created were delighted that a bloody conflict appeared to have been avoided, regardless of whether it was by means unsustainable over the long term, particularly in the event that oil prices should collapse. The Algerian response to the Arab Spring was, in other words, along the lines of the classic rentier-state retort to crisis: the buy-off of dissidents with petrodollars.7 As I seek to demonstrate in this chapter, the impact of the Arab Spring protests in Algeria has been negligible in terms of changes to the political system as well as the party system. The structures of the political system have remained much the same, as have the key figures. Furthermore, the 2012 elections, the first to be held since the eruption of the Arab Spring, did not see any new relevant parties enter the party system. That said, in contrast to the Moroccan case, where the prospects for further change remain bleak, there is at least the hope of another potential democratic moment emerging in Algeria in the near future given the announcement of Bouteflika’s retirement from politics in 2014 (Chikhi 2012).

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The Arab Spring: A Dynamo for Party System Change in Algeria? With the CNCD effectively being a nonentity, and taking into account the fact that most of the demonstrations taking place across the country were relatively small as they attracted barely a thousand people, the Bouteflika regime was easily able to quell the unrest, partly via bribery as mentioned earlier, but also by the use of brute force by the security apparatus. Furthermore, because the protesters did not focus their demands on the departure of Bouteflika, and given that elections were already scheduled to take place in the spring of 2012, the regime was not pressured into making any significant political concessions, for example, by moving forward the date of the legislative and presidential elections (the latter due to take place in 2014), or the amendment of the country’s constitution.8 The only sign of political responsiveness was the announcement of the end of the state of emergency, which did not have much of an effect given the continued use of repressive measures, such as the clamping down on protesters by the security forces and the prohibition of demonstrations. The Legislative Elections of 2012

Hence, according to schedule, albeit still with much fanfare, the country prepared for legislative elections to take place on May 10, 2012.9 In the spirit of the Arab Spring, and at no risk to the regime, several new political parties were licensed in the run-up to the elections, giving the illusion that this time things were going to be different. In reality, however, there was not much uncertainty surrounding the process. Despite the adoption of a new election code, 185 lists of independent candidates, and forty-four parties taking part (twenty-one of them new entities), it was always a given that the regime party was going to win. The real issues were by how much, how large a share would be awarded the Rassemblement National Démocratique (RND), how well would the Islamists do, and what would voter turnout look like? The election framework. The fate of the parties and independent candidates contesting the elections was, of course, determined to a certain extent by the nature of the election framework, which kept in place the system adopted with the 1997 election code: proportional representation utilizing the largest remainder formula and closed lists (National Democratic Institute 2012).10 While the general principles stayed the same, the majority of electoral districts were redesigned and the district magnitude increased. Hence, in the 2012 elections, the minimum district magnitude was officially four, although in reality the district magnitude in the Algerian districts var-

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ied between five and thirty-seven, the latter in the wilaya of Algiers.11 With most districts of a magnitude of between five and ten, and a wilaya threshold of 5 percent, the 2012 elections were more competitive than previous contests, although the election framework still favored the larger parties, and overrepresented the smaller districts (Union Européenne 2012: 11). The greatest change introduced with the 2012 election code was the stipulation that a certain proportion of the candidates presented in each district had to be female. How large a share depended on the size of the wilaya, with the minimum being 20 percent female candidates. In some districts, however, the code stipulated that 50 percent of those represented on the lists must be women (National Democratic Institute 2012: 16).12 As a consequence of this measure of positive discrimination, the share of female representatives in the legislature exploded, increasing from 8 percent following the 2007 elections to nearly a third of all members—31.6 percent to be precise. On this front, Algeria clearly outperformed its Maghrebi neighbors as well as several European states (National Democratic Institute 2012: 8). The FLN-RND victory. Only a day after the elections had taken place, it was clear that the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) had outperformed all of its rivals, and on May 15, 2012, the constitutional council confirmed the official victory of the party, which managed to capture 208 seats out of the 462 up for contestation.13 Despite the impressive performance, the FLN would not be able to govern alone, however. With only a simple majority in parliament, the party was forced to form a coalition government. This reality hardly posed a problem given that the RND won 14.7 percent of the contested seats, meaning that no less than 59.7 percent of parliamentarians belonged to the two long-term allies, which could therefore continue to run the country as they had done so far, with or without additional partners. With the FLN-RND victory, the prospects for great policy change were slim. Not only would Bouteflika remain in power as the country’s president until 2014, the governing coalition was also going to remain much the same in terms of the distribution of power. The Mouvement de la Société pour la Paix (MSP), which had never been a central component, had left, but given the party’s weak position within the presidential alliance, this reality did not matter much. Moreover, although the FLN had witnessed a significant increase in its seat share, which was up nearly 30 percent if compared to the 2007 elections, the party was not strengthened much vis-à-vis the RND, and that despite the fact that the RND had actually suffered a setback in the elections, its share of the seats dropping to 6.4 percent. However, as the FLN needed a coalition partner, and with the MSP gone, the FLN effectively had nowhere else to turn but the RND; hence, the latter had significantly increased its blackmail potential within the coalition.14

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The exception that proves the rule—Algeria’s weak Islamists. The

MSP’s decision to leave the presidential alliance was made public shortly before the onset of the election campaign in January 2012. Most observers were in agreement that the party was attempting to capitalize on the Islamist wave that appeared to be occurring in the region as Islamists gained power not only in neighboring Tunisia and Morocco, but also elsewhere, most notably in Egypt. In other words, it seemed that the MSP leadership had come to the conclusion that the best way to gain office was to distance itself from the regime party and its close ally (Alilat 2011). Kamel Mida, the party’s press officer, declared in an interview with al-Jazeera that “we are expecting very good results, to come first, and that after these elections, we will become the strongest party” adding furthermore that “the FLN has been in power for 50 years, and we are the party that represents change” (Ryan 2012b). In short, contrary to the prognoses of most experts, the MSP clearly believed that the party stood a good chance of winning the elections.15 The MSP was not going it alone, however. In an effort to concentrate the Islamist vote, the party entered into an electoral alliance—the Alliance de l’Algérie Verte (AAV)—with two other well-established Islamist entities, namely, the Mouvement de la Renaissance Islamique (MRI) and the Mouvement el-Islah (MRN), while leaving behind Abdallah Djaballah’s Front pour la Justice et Développement (FJD) and Abdelmajid Menasra’s Front du Changement (FC), the former established in early 2012 and the latter in 2009 as a result of a split within the MSP (Aït-Larbi 2012). Regardless of the creation of the AAV, the Islamists neither managed to emulate the success of their counterparts in the neighboring countries, nor succeeded in denting the performance of the FLN, which, as stated earlier, fared even better than it had in the previous elections. That said, the parties of the AAV won a very respectable 10.6 percent of the seats, making the alliance the country’s third force, just behind the RND and well ahead of the FFS, whose seat share was only 5.8 percent.16 Legitimacy issues. In the context of the Arab Spring, the fact that the FLN witnessed such overwhelming progress despite being the regime party, and the reality that the Algerian Islamists fared rather poorly if compared to their counterparts elsewhere in the region, led to accusations of fraud and manipulation.17 Moussa Touati of the Front National Algérien (FNA), a splinter from the FLN created in 1999, proclaimed that he would challenge the results at the constitutional court, while the leader of the AAV, Bouguerra Soltani, declared that the results were fraudulent and that the AAV was contemplating which steps to take (Al-Arabiya with agencies 2012). In the end, the AAV parliamentarians as well as a number of representatives from other minor parties refused to take up their seats in parliament, leaving sixty seats empty on the day of the inaugural session (Reuters and al-

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Jazeera 2012).18 By the time the first parliamentary session ended in early July, the boycotting parliamentarians were still to take up their seats (National Democratic Institute 2012: 8).19 Notwithstanding the accusations of fraud, the various international election observers seemed satisfied with how the process unfolded, although several reports did note that there was certainly room for improvement. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s sentiment that “these elections—and the high number of women elected—are a welcome step in Algeria’s progress toward democratic reform” was widely shared, not only by the European Union (EU), but also by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and a number of individual countries, such as Spain and France (Al-Arabiya with agencies 2012).20 On the basis of the many reports issued by the different observation missions as well as the statements made by several of the Algerian opposition parties, it appears that although the 2012 elections were the most free and fair to date (that is, save for the aborted ones of 1991), they were far from devoid of large-scale fraud and manipulation, particularly by the regime. In short, the 2012 elections constituted a step forward, but not significantly enough to warrant the label “democratic.” Despite the allegations of fraud aired by various opposition forces, the majority of the successful parties (save for, of course, those of the AAV) eventually accepted the results and took up their seats in parliament. To most observers, this reality did not come as much of a surprise as there was widespread agreement before the elections took place that the most likely outcome of the process would be the continuation of FLN-RND rule. Hence, most opposition parties had already had an internal discussion about regime legitimacy prior to the elections, a reality that effectively meant that those parties that chose to partake in the contest were also ready to accept the outcome, even if it left a lot to be desired. Of the relevant opposition forces, only the RCD chose the boycotting route, with Atmane Azouz, the head of the party’s parliamentary group, declaring that “la démarche, qui ne vise rien d’autre que le maintien du statu quo et la remise en selle d’un pouvoir illégitime . . . , est une insulte au malheur qui accable le peuple algérien” [the exercise, which has no other purpose than to maintain the status quo and consolidate an illegitimate power . . . , is an insult to the people of Algeria] (Jeune Afrique with AFP 2012a).21 In contrast, the leader of the FFS announced that his party would be ending its boycott and contest the 2012 legislative elections, not because the FFS wished to afford the regime legitimacy, but because the much-needed process of change “has to start somewhere” and the Arab Spring had provided a good context (Ryan 2012a, 2012c). In an interview with al-Jazeera, Hayet Taiati Meziani, one of the party’s candidates in Algiers, stated that “of course, it is important to participate in this election campaign. With everything that is going on in the Arab world, our participation is important

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to warn the public of the dangers around us and to fight peacefully against violence in our society,” thereby indirectly referring to the threat of status quo as well as the so-called Islamist threat. Party leader Aït Ahmed had spoken of both of these threats previously, when he declared that “Islamic fundamentalism and anti-Islamic fundamentalism have fought against the irrepressible pluralism of our country. They have—both—contributed to aggravating the damage caused by authoritarianism and intolerance of single party rule” (Ryan 2012a, 2012c). Had Aït Ahmed and other party leaders within the opposition known what would happen in the aftermath of the elections, there is a good chance that they would have chosen similar paths to that of the AAV, or even that of the RCD. Moreover, several international observers might also have been less enthusiastic in their assessment had they waited a little before publishing their reports. The fact is that despite the legislative elections’ taking place on May 10 and the results’ being confirmed some five days later, by late August 2012 Bouteflika had still not dismissed the Ahmed Ouyahia government (Sharraq 2012). Clearly, there were some very big legitimacy issues, yet the ancien régime remained firmly in the saddle as the opposition was weak, the elections had already been held, the international observers left, and the Western media quickly lost what little interest it had in the Algerian part of the Arab Spring. The long-awaited cabinet. The dismissal of the Ouyahia government fi-

nally came on September 3, when Abdelmalek Sellal, a close ally of Bouteflika, was proclaimed the country’s new prime minister.22 Shortly after, Sellal’s team was announced, albeit without much explanation. That said, most cabinet members did not need introducing to the public; they were all familiar faces, most having held cabinet portfolios in the past, many even in the previous cabinet.23 As expected, the bulk of cabinet members were affiliated with the FLN and the RND, although in several cases only indirectly. In fact, the majority of the cabinet portfolios went to so-called independent technocrats, most of whom were close to Bouteflika or the army (Aimeur 2012a; Belmadi 2012; Takheroubt 2012). In addition to the FLN and RND representatives and the technocrats, a few portfolios were awarded to a number of smaller supporting parties, namely, Mohamed Saïd Belaïd’s Islamist Parti de la Liberté et de la Justice (PLJ), the anti-Islamist Alliance Nationale Républicaine (ANR) established by Rédha Malek in 1995, as well as the newly created Berber-rooted Mouvement Populaire Algérien (MPA) of Amara Benyounès, and Amar Ghoul’s Tadjamou Amel al Djazaïr (Rassemblement de l’espoir de l’Algérie [TAJ]), which is also Islamist (Makedhi 2012). In other words, the inclusion of these additional four parties in the coalition ensured the co-optation of a much broader segment of the population and, furthermore, a (slightly) more solid parliamentary major-

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ity for the governing coalition, thereby making for a rather smooth legislative process.24 Finally, it is worth mentioning that the Sellal cabinet included only three female ministers, a reality that came as a disappointment to many given the introduction of the aforementioned quota for women. Hence, while between 20 and 50 percent of the candidates running in each wilaya had to be female, the country’s prime minister did not feel obliged to appoint a more balanced team—only 8.3 percent of the cabinet ministers were women (Takheroubt 2012).25 The Arab Spring and the State of the Party System in Algeria

Clearly wiser than the country’s politicians, and with much less to gain from endorsing the elections, the electorate abstained en masse from partaking in the regime-legitimizing process. The participation by the FFS and most of the other opposition forces, as well as the repeat performances of Bouteflika in the media, during which he strongly urged the population to vote, did not have much of an effect on how people viewed the elections. Despite taking place in the context of the Arab Spring and the promise of a free and fair contest, voter turnout remained extremely low at only 43.1 percent according to the official statistics (which were widely disputed) (Entelis 2012: 3). Regardless of whether the official voter turnout figure had been manipulated before its release, and notwithstanding the fact that this figure was certainly higher than the one for the previous legislative elections, the result was undeniably a disappointment to many, albeit for varying reasons. Those hoping for political change found voter turnout much too high, whereas to the regime the figure was officially “acceptable” given that it was an improvement on 2007. Yet, there is no denying that in reality the result constituted a setback for the regime, particularly if compared to the situation in Tunisia and Morocco, where voter turnout was 52 percent and 45.4 percent, respectively. Moreover, of the 9,339,026 voters who turned out on polling day, no fewer than 1,704,047—or some 18 percent—cast a blank or an invalid vote and, to make matters worse, although the seat share of the FLN had increased, the party’s share of the vote had dropped from 23.0 percent in 2007 to 17.3 percent in 2012. Taken together with the vote share of the RND, the governing partners had gone from commanding 33.3 percent of the vote in 2007 to 24.2 percent in 2012. In other words, to anyone outside regime, the results hardly seemed like a popular display of trust and support. Looking at the figures for voter turnout and the share of invalid or blank votes together with data on party age and the effective number of parties, the electorate came across as apathetic at the time of the legislative elections of 2012. Voter turnout was low, invalid/blank votes accounted for a large share of the votes cast, and despite the many new parties emerging,

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the effective number of parties only came to 4.1—a figure down from 5.6 in the previous elections. Algeria had, in other words, gone from extreme pluralism to limited pluralism in the wake of the Arab Spring. This latter point is important to qualify, because while it is true that only a handful of parties were sizeable, and that only at a stretch given that a mere three parties secured in excess of 10 percent of the seats, a considerable number of parties were awarded seats in parliament. Whereas the previous legislature comprised twenty-one parties, this number had grown to twenty-seven after the 2012 elections—an increase of nearly 29 percent.26 Of these twenty-seven parties, a staggering 60 percent only received less than 2 percent of the valid votes cast, and some 89 percent secured a vote share of less than 5 percent. Party change—old and new forces. While giving rise to a substantial

number of new parties, the first post–Arab Spring elections in Algeria did not fundamentally alter the party landscape. The parties that were relevant prior to the unrest remained firmly in power afterward. This is not to say that party change did not occur, just that not much change took place within the FLN and the RND, which both remained highly office-seeking and appeared convinced that they would emerge victorious as usual. Most notably, there was movement among the Islamist parties, namely, the MRN, the MRI, and the MSP, and among the Berber parties, although the transformation among the latter was less pronounced. With regard to the MRN and the MRI, these former vote-seeking parties joined forces with the previous regime entity, the MSP, in the AAV electoral alliance in an effort to obtain power at the polls. Unlike the MSP, whose leadership thought that the party stood a good chance of winning a sizeable share of the votes and therefore left the presidential alliance during the early months of 2012, the MRN and MRI both fancied their chances as supporting parties. In other words, while the MSP clearly emphasized vote-seeking in the 2012 elections, albeit in a failed effort to gain office, the MRN and the MRI could both best be characterized as office-seeking parties of the patronageoriented variety. Among the Berber parties, the roles were reversed if compared to the previous elections. The FFS, which had boycotted the legislative elections of 2002 and 2007, decided to participate again, thereby moving the party into the vote-seeking category as it compromised on policy and certainly did not even entertain the idea of office. The RCD, on the other hand, made the decision early on to boycott the elections on the grounds that these were unlikely to alter the dynamics of the political system profoundly. Hence, while the party remained policy-seeking, it was much more staunchly so than in the past. At a first glance, this move by the RCD seemed perplexing given that the party would undoubtedly have capitalized somewhat on the

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efforts of the CNCD as discussed earlier. However, it was always clear that the RCD was never going to be a major national player, not only because the party was still viewed by the electorate as regional, but also due to the poor showing at the Arab Spring protests, regardless of whether organized by the CNCD (Le Matin DZ 2012). Consequently, boycotting the elections was a rather low-cost move, and it is possible that it would even benefit the RCD in the longer run as the new party leader, Mohcine Belabès, who took over from Sadi in early March 2012, would have a relatively clean slate and plenty of time to prepare for the next legislative elections, thereby allowing him to set his own mark on the party.27 The genuine opposition. With no new relevant parties emerging in the wake of the Arab Spring, and with the more sizeable “old” relevant parties either squarely office-seeking or office-seeking parties in disguise (i.e., the MSP), where does this leave the Algerian party scene? Is there no genuine opposition party, which stands even the slightest chance of ousting the FLN-RND partnership from power? The answer to this question appears to be a no, if one only considers the legal opposition parties. However, if one also takes into account those entities that have been forced to operate clandestinely, the picture appears to be slightly different. The Front Islamique du Salut (FIS), the party set to win a landslide victory in the aborted legislative elections of 1991, is still active despite its formal dissolution in 1992 and the subsequent departure of several key figures.28 The regime’s treatment of the party indicates that it remains a perceived threat, something that observers seem to be in agreement with. However, given the absence of the FIS from the polls since the 1991 elections, there is no way of measuring the party’s popular strength in earnest, as the FIS leadership itself has been keen to admit (Ryan 2012c). Suffice it to say here that during the campaign leading up to the 2012 elections, the FIS cofounder Ali Belhadj toured the country vigorously, frequently attracting large crowds (Ryan 2012b, 2012c). On more than one occasion, however, Belhadj and his supporters were met with harsh repression, and Belhadj was arrested when campaigning in villages in Kabylia in February of 2012 (Ryan 2012b, 2012c). It is important to underline that Belhadj urged FIS supporters to boycott the elections not only because he viewed these as undemocratic and therefore illegitimate, but also because the FIS leadership had an alternative vision of political change. Most important, Belhadj argued in favor of a so-called transitional period that would allow time for gradual and peaceful transfer of power to a democratically elected set of institutions—popularly elected bodies at the municipal, regional, and national levels. According to Belhadj, during the transitional period, a “national unity” government would be formed, and this body would be tasked with drafting a new constitution. Elections would then fol-

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low, beginning with municipal elections and ending with a presidential contest. That said, in an interview with al-Jazeera, Belhadj also made clear that the FIS (like the Ennahda in Tunisia) preferred a parliamentary system to a presidential one as the latter have tended to turn into dictatorships in the Arab world. Signaling political maturity and undoubtedly a desire to become a more widely accepted political actor, Belhadj added that he was well aware that this view was not shared by everyone and, moreover, that the matter ought to be up to those devising the new constitution (Ryan 2012b).

The Algerian Political System in the Wake of the Arab Spring The reality that the FIS unquestionably has an alternative vision not only of the future of Algeria, but also of how to get there, sadly does not alter the fact that the prospects for democracy remain bleak if one is hoping for a pacted transition. The FIS must be characterized as a so-called radical actor given the party’s uncompromising stance toward the regime. More important than the character of the FIS is the fact that while there are certainly relevant forces within the opposition that would like to see regime change, and despite the fact that most of these are moderates (i.e., the FFS, the Parti des Travailleurs [PT], and the AAV), there are simply no actors for these to negotiate with within the regime.29 The FLN and the RND both strongly favor status quo, and taking into account the results of the legislative elections, coupled with the fact that the Arab Spring protests in Algeria have been modest in size and diffuse (as well as moderate) in their demands, neither of the two governing parties are under any pressure to undergo transformation from hard-liners into reformers.30 Moreover, as the brief discussion that follows seeks to highlight, the negotiations relating to the (s)election of Bouteflika’s successor point in the direction that this potential democratic moment is about to be wasted as the dynamics of the political system not only appear to remain the same in the immediate aftermath of the Arab Spring, but also look set to persist in the foreseeable future. Bouteflika’s Departure: A Further Potential Democratic Moment for Algeria

The announcement that Bouteflika would be stepping down once his third term in office runs out in 2014 sent the rumor mill into overdrive. With no obvious successor to the post, and with strong divisions present within the regime, who would be taking over from the aging president? Of course, given that the country’s president is formally elected in direct, competitive,

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free, and fair elections, this question ought to be up to the electorate. In practice, however, who will become the next president is very much a matter decided upon by le pouvoir, the core political elite, most notably the upper echelons of the army and key members of the FLN. Due to my focus on political parties in this book, very little attention has been paid to the army so far, although there have been plenty of references made to the central role it has been afforded in Algerian politics in the postindependence era. With Bouteflika about to step down and several FLN figures vying for the job, thereby dividing the already factionalized party even further, the army looks set to remain not only a key actor, but the key actor. In other words, to understand contemporary politics in Algeria prior to the Arab Spring and to assess the prospects for democracy following its eruption, some knowledge of the army is paramount. The army in politics—not outside, but above. Going back to the years immediately following independence, the army naturally played a central role in politics, partly because of its close ties to the FLN, but also as a consequence of the fact that it emerged from the struggle for independence as the strongest actor in terms of political legitimacy. It was the army (or the armed wing of the FLN, to be precise), not the party, which was seen as having delivered a free Algeria (Werenfels 2007: 33–34; Roberts 2007: 5). Over the years, the army solidified its central role in politics, particularly following Colonel Houari Boumédiène’s coup against Ben Bella in 1965. In 1989, with the adoption of the country’s new constitution, the army’s role was reduced to safeguarding national independence and sovereignty, but rather than stepping aside and leaving the political arena to the politicians, the politically ambitious generals chose to interpret the new provisions as a carte blanche to interfere in political life as they saw fit. The army had, in other words, become elevated, placing itself not outside of politics, but above politics (Werenfels 2007: 42; Roberts 2007: 9). Due to its extensive power, the army witnessed hardly any significant challenge to its dominant position in politics; presidents and prime ministers who were seen to be getting ahead of themselves were simply dismissed. It was not until the election of Bouteflika as the country’s fifth president in 1999 that the balance of power began to shift. Under the initially hugely popular Bouteflika, who was credited with having ended the civil war and brought Algeria out of its international isolation, a reality which made him impossible to dismiss, the presidency became a separate power. center, albeit still subordinate to the army (Werenfels 2007: 55–59; Roberts 2007: 11). While there had always been divisions within the army, these intensified following Bouteflika’s ascent to the presidency. There were disputes within the army over which candidate(s) to back in the presidential elec-

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tions, most notably in 2004, when Ali Benflis, the then secretary-general of the FLN, presented himself as a very viable candidate against Bouteflika. Backing Benflis would have been one way of weakening Bouteflika, if not ousting him from the presidency (Werenfels 2007: 56, 61; Roberts 2007: 14). An additional source of division was the process of rejuvenation taking place under Bouteflika, which saw generational change taking place within the government, political parties, civil administration, unions, and the private as well as public sector. The army, however, had not followed suit (at least not at the same pace) and that created resentment among the younger generation (Werenfels 2007: 80, 83).31 Furthermore, there were the serious differences within the regime, largely between Bouteflika and high-ranking members of the army, who were dissatisfied with Bouteflika’s acquisition of considerable decisionmaking power at the expense of the army or were opposed to his policy of national reconciliation—most notably General Mohamed Lamari and his associates (Roberts 2007: 14).32 Yet, despite these schisms within the regime, there was no denying that the chief decisionmakers, regardless of whether stemming from the army or the FLN, all had the same agenda: the perpetuation of status quo in the sense of regime survival. Neither the upper echelons of the army nor Bouteflika and his inner circle were interested in ending authoritarian rule, although the two groups undeniably had different visions of the ideal authoritarian regime. Prospective presidents. Given the army’s position above—rather than outside—politics, and taking into account that the army’s chief political rival has been the president (Bouteflika) rather than the FLN, the potential democratic moment that is the end of Bouteflika’s reign will certainly usher in a new regime in the sense of a new head of state, but the character of the regime will almost certainly remain the same: a military-backed regime. Undemocratic. Authoritarian. The reasoning behind this conclusion is as follows. The army will emerge strengthened not only by the departure of Bouteflika, but also by the fact that it will have played a central role in the (s)election of the new president. At present, there is a handful of serious contenders to the post should Bouteflika keep his word33 and not seek another term in office: Mouloud Hamrouche, Ali Benflis, Ahmed Benbitour, Saïd Bouteflika, and Amar Ghoul.34 Which of these five candidates, if any, is going to be successful is still too early to say, not only because others may join them in the race and some may withdraw, but also because it is not yet clear which factions within the army and the FLN have the upper hand, although the recent appointment of General Bachir Tartag as head of the Directorate for Internal Security points in the direction of the hard-liners (the so-called éradicateurs) being in control at present (Lounès 2012). It is sufficient to say

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here that all the prominent candidates currently aired are seasoned members of the political elite, Hamrouche and Benflis being former FLN prime ministers, Saïd Bouteflika the younger brother of the incumbent president, and Ghoul a former minister and prominent figure within the MSP, from which he resigned to set up his own party—the TAJ—in late July 2012.35 Ghoul holds the post of minister of public works in the first post–Arab Spring cabinet. Finally, there is former prime minister Benbitour, who is a technocrat and therefore somewhat of an outsider, but of the five candidates he is also the most outspoken against Bouteflika and in favor of democratic reforms. This may make him popular with the electorate, although that is unlikely to matter much given how elections take place in the country.36 While all the candidates are well-known faces and prominent members of the political elite, there are differences to be detected among them, most notably in their relationship with president Bouteflika, the army, and the Islamist camp. Beginning with Saïd Bouteflika, his star has rapidly ascended or at least his position of power has increased significantly within the FLN in recent months solely by virtue of being the president’s brother (Hafid 2012). Partly because of his lack of official political experience, the younger Bouteflika still remains a wildcard, however. A further reason why he is a rather improbable winner of the 2014 contest is that his candidacy would be opposed by many within the political elite, who are well aware of the negative signal his election would send out in an Arab world where family dynasties are now being toppled (Alilat 2012; Chikhi 2012). The younger Bouteflika has also not officially put his name forward but seems instead to be encouraging his older brother to take another term in office. The best bid on an FLN candidate, given the party’s penchant for old, familiar faces, is either Benflis or Hamrouche. The two are long-standing members of the party and both former prime ministers, the former leaving the post following a fallout with Bouteflika, and the latter after disaccord with the army over its handling of the largely FIS-led spring strikes of 1991 (Quandt 1998: 54–58). In other words, both of these two candidates signal somewhat of a break with the Bouteflika/military regime, albeit far from a clean one given their political history. Of the two, Benflis is probably the most likely to succeed, as he has the backing of key figures within the army due to his close relationship with General Lamari, the former chief of staff fired by Bouteflika in 2004 (Ouazani 2012b).37 A further reason why Benflis is a more palatable candidate than Hamrouche in the eyes of the army is the reality that the latter is generally seen to be pro-FIS (Ouazani 2012b). The two main “outsiders”—by virtue of not belonging to the FLN—are Benbitour and Ghoul. Benbitour, who has formally declared his intention to run in the elections, is an outsider due to his status as a technocrat (i.e., lack of party affiliation) and his degree of outspokenness against the Bouteflika regime, but could prove an agreeable compromise.38 Moreover, he seems to

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be the most well prepared and vocal of all the candidates, having spoken at great lengths about his reform plans—a rarity in Algeria if one disregards the Islamists of the FIS. Ghoul is much more controversial due to his Islamist background, having been a high-profile member of the MSP for many years. With the army weary of the Islamists, Ghoul arguably constitutes a divisive candidate. That said, he has strong ties to Bouteflika, thereby appeasing some of the critics afraid of too drastic of a change. Furthermore, his departure from the MSP in the summer of 2012 with a view to setting up the TAJ, which is supposedly modeled on the Turkish Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP), sends a signal that Ghoul is willing to adapt. Consequently, this latter move may have reassured some of the skeptics within the army, as has undoubtedly his inclusion in the Sellal cabinet (Chikhi 2012; Khelassi 2012). Should Ghoul make it to the contest in 2014, he has an advantage vis-à-vis the other candidates in circulation at the moment in that he appeals to a large segment of the population—the moderate39 Islamists, who are currently riding a wave of political success in the Middle East and North Africa, and the dissatisfied youth, who find it easier to relate to Ghoul than the other candidates given the fact that he belongs to the third generation of the political elite. All the other prospective presidents are from the second generation, that is, those born in the period from the mid-1940s until the late 1950s (Werenfels 2007: 89).

Prospects for Change: Conclusion and Perspectives Already from the outset, it was clear that the Algerian part of the Arab Spring was not going to deliver much. The demonstrations were too meek, most political parties were not interested in radicalizing to the point of engaging in revolutionary activities, and the regime put its petrodollars to good use early on, having learned from the mistakes of its falling compatriots elsewhere in the region. This is not to say that nothing interesting happened. New parties were formed—in fact, several of them. Most of these were, however, offshoots of already existing parties as the politically ambitious seized the moment and formed parties of their own in the rather naïve hope of catapulting themselves into more powerful positions. Very few of these were successful. The leaders of the Berber-oriented MPA as well as the head of the Islamist TAJ, created after the elections had been held, were both given cabinet portfolios, but their inclusion hardly altered the nature of the regime; on the contrary, the move signaled continuity with regard to regime strategy—it was merely faces on the puppets that had changed. Should Bouteflika depart as announced following the presidential elections of 2014, it appears that Algeria may be witnessing the arrival of yet

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another regime puppet: the new president. While Bouteflika succeeded in carving out a role for the presidency during his time in power, this role was very much tied to Bouteflika himself—to his historical legitimacy, to his personal popularity at the outset, and to his own intricate web of patronage. No other figure in Algerian political life is presently in possession of these assets—not even remotely. There is no candidate who has the still important historical legitimacy, who unifies the political parties—or even just the FLN—and who also commands the respect of the army.40 In other words, the new president will find it tremendously difficult to maintain the extremely powerful position held by Bouteflika during his presidency as a new president will simply be too weak vis-à-vis the army, which plays a (if not the) central role in (s)electing the new president. Hence, the most probable scenario for the immediate political future of Algeria is the continuation of status quo in the sense of the survival of authoritarianism. In comparison to the Bouteflika regime, however, the military flavor of the regime will undoubtedly be much stronger.

Notes 1. The demonstrations were, in other words, directed toward the government, local authorities, and the more obscure actor le pouvoir, that is, the core political elite, most notably the upper echelons of the army and key members of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN). In short, there were no large-scale protests demanding the resignation of Bouteflika or, indeed, his overthrow. 2. Most demonstrations only rallied a few hundred people, but that did not imply, by any means, that they were not taken seriously by the regime. In contrast to the protesters, the security apparatus was out in force, with between 20,000 and 30,000 officers present at some of the demonstrations (al-Jazeera 2012a; Agence France-Presse 2011g; Nossiter and Williams 2011). 3. The central position of the RCD within the CNCD was reflected in the arrests made by the authorities. In many cases, the security forces deliberately targeted the office of the RCD in Algiers, and many of those arrested elsewhere were also RCD members or sympathizers (al-Jazeera 2012a). 4. Sadi subsequently resigned from the RCD leadership in spring of 2012. On March 10, 2012, during the fourth party congress, Mohcine Belabès (the RCD’s former spokesperson) was elected party leader (Aimeur 2012b). 5. Do note that officially the CNCD had neither a leader nor a spokesperson (Chibani 2011). 6. The CNCD splintered on February 22, 2011, not long after its formation. The event saw the partisan elements leaving the movement, while the civil society organizations and other societal forces remained. For the press release, please see http://www.la-laddh.org/spip.php?article661 (accessed July 1, 2012). 7. For more on rentier states, see the classic texts by Beblawi and Luciani (1987) and Luciani (1990). 8. Although it is expected that the constitution will be revised in the near future. Given the strength of the army and the lack of rebelliousness of the political

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parties, however, the constitution is unlikely to be drastically altered. A move from presidentialism to parliamentarism seems highly unlikely, as does a serious downplaying of the role of the army. 9. Please note that all references to election results made in this chapter are based on the data presented in Appendix C. 10. See also the election code (loi organique no. 12-01 adopted on January 12, 2012), and Journal officiel de la République Algérienne no. 4 adopted on January 26, 2012. 11. The electoral districts corresponded to the wilaya. There were forty-eight Algerian districts and four districts abroad, the latter of which each had a district magnitude of two (National Democratic Institute 2012). See also the election code (loi organique no. 12-01 adopted on January 12, 2012), and Journal officiel de la République Algérienne no. 4 adopted on January 26, 2012. 12. See also loi organique no. 12-03 of January 14, 2012. 13. The party was originally awarded 221 seats (see Jeune Afrique with AFP 2012b). 14. The Mouvement de la Renaissance Islamique (MRI) had, of course, also gone. This was a much less important fact, though, given the situation of the party in Algerian politics. 15. See, for instance, Aït-Larbi (2012) and Ouazani (2012a). 16. In the wake of the 2012 elections, more specifically in December 2012, FFS leader Hocine Aït Ahmed announced that he would be stepping down at the time of the party’s next congress in June 2013. The official explanation given was that he wished to give the opportunity to the younger generation to take the party forward (Algérie Presse Service 2013; Lyes 2012). 17. Even if one includes the seat share of the FJD and the FC, the Islamists only commanded 13.2 percent of the contested seats after the first post–Arab Spring elections. 18. Several parties had considered taking part in the boycott—labeled the Front national pour la sauvegarde de la démocratie—among them the Hizb el-Fedjr elJadid (HFJ), the Mouvement el-Infitah (ME), the FJD, the Parti de la Liberté et de la Justice (PLJ), and the FNA (Algérie Presse Service 2012). 19. The boycott was subsequently ended in the autumn of 2012. 20. For the preliminary statement by the EU’s mission, please refer to http://www.eueom.eu/algerie2012/home?LANG=fr (accessed July 3, 2012). Here it is also possible to find the joint declaration of Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the EU, and Stefan Füle, member of the European Commission. In contrast to most of the reports, the one issued by the National Democratic Institute (2012) was very direct in its criticism, as well as highly critical. 21. The RCD’s call for a boycott of the elections was supported by various civil society organizations as well as by the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) (Ryan 2012a, 2012b). 22. Sellal was responsible for running Bouteflika’s campaign in the presidential elections of 2004 and 2009. 23. For the full list of cabinet members, please refer to L’Expression (2012). 24. Do note that the inclusion of parties additional to the FLN and the RND did not contribute to a significant increase in parliamentary seats, although the contribution cannot be entirely discounted. The PLJ won no seats in the 2012 elections, the TAJ was only formed in the aftermath of the elections, the ANR won 0.6 percent of the seats, and the Mouvement pour la Démocratie en Algérie (MDA) was awarded 1.5 percent.

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25. The National Democratic Institute (2012: 16) questioned the commitment to gender equality already prior to the formation of the Sellal cabinet. 26. Hence, the increase in the volatility score, too. The Pedersen index went up from 25.4 for the electoral period 2002–2007 to 35.2 for the electoral period of 2007–2012. In addition to the successful entry of eleven new parties into the system, significant volatility was caused by voters shifting their allegiances from one older party to another, the end of the FFS boycott, and the RCD’s decision to boycott the 2012 elections as previously mentioned. 27. Do note, however, that Belabès has always been extremely close to Sadi. In other words, while he is much younger than his predecessor, his election as the new party leader—after his initial appointment as interim president of the RCD—by no means signals a break with the past. 28. And, furthermore, Abbasi Madani and Ali Belhadj were both banned from speaking in public, carrying out political activities, standing in elections, and voting. 29. The radicals being the excluded FIS and the RCD, which boycotted the 2012 legislative elections. 30. See also Benzatat (2012) and Le Matin DZ (2012). 31. It is important to note here that the division within the army between the younger generation and the so-called generation of the revolution was also present within the FLN. The younger generation was represented by Benflis, the first secretary-general of the party not to have fought in the struggle for independence, and who, rather unsurprisingly, preferred to advance the careers of those that did not fall into the category of les dinosaures—the old revolutionary party elite to which Bouteflika belonged. While Benflis was undeniably more reform oriented than Bouteflika, he did not, by any means, seek to move the party in a much more democratic direction. Rather, during Benflis’s stint as secretary-general, the FLN became much more personalistic, centering on Benflis himself, rather than the party and its program, a reality that led to accusations of zaïmisme (i.e., charismatic leadership) and therefore deep resentment among those who felt demoted or simply left out (Werenfels 2007: 125). 32. Hence, the reason why there has been a tendency to divide the regime into éradicateurs and réconciliateurs, the latter group consisting of those members of the regime in favor of a rapprochement with the FIS (Bouandel and Zoubir 1998; Roberts 2007). Other scholars have gone down a tripartite route, utilizing the widely applied categories of “nationalists,” “Islamists,” and “democrats.” I agree with Werenfels (2007: 94) that both approaches are much too simplistic and therefore do not adequately reflect reality. For more on her alternative model, see Werenfels (2007). 33. Rumors are rife that Bouteflika wishes to extend his mandate, and that his key personal adviser (his brother Saïd Bouteflika) is encouraging him to do so. For Bouteflika to run for president again, however, the constitution must be revised. This could easily be done, as the shenanigans at the time of the presidential elections of 2009 bear witness to, and recently Prime Minister Sellal has made it known that he intends for the constitution to be revised prior to the 2014 presidential elections, albeit without specifying why. This announcement was made with considerable protests, particularly from Louisa Hanoune of the PT (previously a presidential candidate) and the technocrat Ahmed Benbitour, who has publicly announced that he will be putting himself forward in 2014 (Ouchikh 2013). 34. Prior to the 2012 legislative elections, the leaders of the FLN and the RND, namely, Abdelaziz Belkhadem and Ahmed Ouyahia, were also serious contenders. However, Belkhadem was not included in the Sellal cabinet formed in September

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2012, a clear indication of his fall from grace, and more importantly, he narrowly lost a vote of no confidence within the FLN on January 31, 2013, and looks set to be replaced as party leader by Amar Saadani, the former president of the National Assembly (Sadek 2013; Yacine 2013). It is also worth noting that Belkhadem was always viewed as somewhat of a compromise candidate given his secularist credentials and accommodating stance toward the Islamists, a reality that has made him unpopular with the army (Ouazani 2012b). Ouyahia resigned as party leader of the RND as of January 15, 2013, after strong pressure from within the party, most notably from Yahia Guidoum, who, as predicted, took on the role of interim president of the RND (Jeune Afrique with AFP 2013). Belkhadem and Ouyahia reportedly still intend to run for president in 2014, but given these recent events, they hardly stand a chance. In fact, Ouyahia’s candidacy was written off by some even prior to the 2012 legislative elections as he does not constitute a break with the ancien régime. Others did (and do) not rate Ouyahia’s chances because of his failure to enact successful economic reforms, a reality that has made him a rather unpopular figure (Chikhi 2012). 35. The TAJ attracted significant figures from other parties even before its accreditation, most notably the MSP and the FNA. 36. Ouali and Schemm (2012) share this view. 37. Do note that Lamari died in February 2012. 38. Benbitour issued a public letter in August 2011 warning Algerians of the perils of the continuation of the incumbent regime. For a copy of the letter, please refer to http://www.cicc-dz.net/aout2011.html. The page was last visited on August 25, 2012. 39. Moderate in the hard-line/soft-line sense—that is, those Islamists who are willing to afford legitimacy to the system by participating in the elections. 40. Please do note that by “respect,” I do not necessarily mean “support.”

9 Prospects for Democracy in North Africa

Prior to the eruption of the Arab Spring, very few scholars found themselves compelled to study the political systems—and particularly the party systems—of the Maghreb. This reality was largely a consequence of the lack of democracy in the region. To most observers, it appeared unlikely that the incumbent regimes, which had been in power for decades, were going to fall in the near future, and very few people envisioned a scenario where the political parties (aside from the regime vehicle[s], of course) were going to play a central role in how politics was conducted in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. A further reason why scholars have been reluctant to study the political parties and party systems of the Maghreb has undoubtedly been the reality that the role of political parties in transitions to democracy is severely understudied and therefore also undertheorized as Ingrid van Biezen (2003: 3– 5) has pointed out. In other words, while an immense body of work exists on the central role played by political parties in consolidating democracy, we know very little about whether they hamper or aid democratization, how they do so, and why this is the case. This book is an effort to contribute to filling the voids just described. From the outset, as the research was commenced long prior to the Arab Spring, my objective was to shed light on the Maghrebi parties in order to facilitate a better understanding of not only how these originated, developed, and function, but also of how they have contributed to the persistence of status quo, the survival of authoritarianism. A final aim was to assess whether the political parties could potentially act as vehicles for democratization, and whether new such parties were likely to emerge. 177

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Party Competition At the outset of the study, one of the key issues was to establish whether political parties do indeed exist in the Maghreb. Given the rather hollow nature of most of these parties throughout the postindependence period, in the sense that very few could be characterized (even at a stretch) as vehicles of citizen representation and mobilization, some would undoubtedly argue that these entities did not and do not constitute political parties. However, if one is to be pedantic, there is no doubt that several Western parties do not meet these criteria anymore. This reality is well illustrated by the growing voter apathy and dealignment witnessed in Western Europe, for example, which in turn led many parties to diversify further away from their traditional representative functions as discussed in Chapter 2. Do Parties Exist?

If one applies Giovanni Sartori’s (1976: 63) classic, but rather minimalist definition of a political party, that is, “any political group identified by an official label that presents at elections, and is capable of placing through elections (free or non-free), candidates for public office,” it is clearly evident that political parties have had a long and plentiful presence in the Maghreb, albeit with considerable variation between the three countries (see Table 9.1). Whereas Morocco has always had a large number of parties contesting legislative elections, this was not always the case in Algeria and Tunisia. As discussed in Chapters 5 and 7, while alternatives to the regime party did always exist in these two countries, the parties that presented a threat to those in power (regardless of whether genuine or perceived) were often dissolved and prohibited, resulting in a situation where they could not present candidates at elections and therefore did not formally constitute political parties. Changes to Party Competition Prior to the Arab Spring

With the tentative political openings of the late 1980s and early 1990s, both Algeria and Tunisia introduced party competition, hence the electorate was presented with a number of alternatives to the regime vehicle on polling day. In reality, however, save for the aborted Algerian elections of 1991, there was not much choice, as the contest was heavily rigged—either via engineering of the election framework or as a consequence of fraud commissioned by the regime.1 Furthermore, it is important to note here that while more parties were allowed to contest legislative elections in both cases, this did not necessarily imply that the workings of the party system changed significantly. In fact, in the case of Tunisia, the dynamics remained much the same following the introduction of multiparty politics, and the

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Table 9.1 Party Competition (legislative elections) Pre–Arab Spring (1956–2009)

Country

Indicator

Algeria

Volatility (seats) 0–83.8 percent Effective number of parties 1–5.6 Party system Hegemonic/single/ limited pluralism/ extreme pluralism

Last Pre–Arab Spring (2007/2009)

Post–Arab Spring (2011/2012)

25.4 percent 35.2 percent 5.6 4.1 Extreme pluralism Limited pluralism

Morocco Volatility (seats) 22–70.2 percent Effective number of parties 2.9–10.4 Party system Limited/extreme pluralism

22 percent 26 percent 10.3 6.7 Extreme pluralism Extreme pluralism

Tunisia

6.1 percent 1.7 Hegemonic

Volatility (seats) 0–11.7 percent Effective number of parties 1–1.7 Party system Hegemonic/single

99.9 percent 4.6 Limited pluralism

Sources: See Tables 3.1, 5.1, and 7.1.

country’s party system could best be characterized as hegemonic. Power remained strongly concentrated in the hands of the regime vehicle, the RCD, and that at a time (by the mid to late 1990s) when Algeria and Morocco both had established multiparty systems that resulted in the formation of coalition governments and the representation in parliament of at least a handful of parties with a seat share in excess of 5 percent. Prior to the Arab Spring, the Tunisian party system was, in other words, rather straightforward to classify; only one party was truly relevant, regardless of the composition of the cabinet and the government or the distribution of seats in parliament. In comparison, both the Algerian and Moroccan cases were much more ambiguous, particularly the latter one. Beginning with Algeria, there was clearly a number of parties that had at least a modicum of popular support,2 and hence the governments formed in the period from the late 1990s until the eruption of the Arab Spring were all coalitions, meaning that at least on paper, power was shared between a small group of parties. In practice, however, power was never genuinely shared between more than two parties, namely, the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) and the Rassemblement National Démocratique (RND), the two regime entities. That said, notwithstanding the fact that the FLN and the RND controlled the majority of seats in parliament and also held the lion’s share of the cabinet portfolios if compared to the other parties, real power lay with the president, and to some extent also the army. In other words, the dynamics of the political system were such that the character of the party system did not matter much with regard to the running of the country. The political parties and parlia-

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ment were largely executors of the will of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who had become so powerful that he did not have to consult with any of the parties, whether his own, parties from within the governing coalition, or members of the opposition. The only actor that the president was careful not to alienate was the army. Hence, the top echelons within this institution, most notably General Mohamed “Toufik” Mediène in recent years, were afforded a considerable say in how politics was conducted. In Morocco, the dynamics of the political system were also such that it did not matter much that the country’s party system was highly competitive. The reality that the legislative elections of 1997, 2002, and 2007 were all successfully contested by fifteen parties or more, and the fact that large coalition governments had become the norm, did not by any means imply that these parties were anything more than actors of peripheral power. The central authority in Morocco was the king; the country was an executive monarchy in which the king not only ruled, but also governed. As discussed in Chapters 3 and 4, Mohammed VI (and before him his father Hassan II) found himself in an extremely powerful position, not only because of the extensive powers bestowed upon him by successive constitutions, but also as a consequence of the character of the party system. Put differently, the wideranging powers granted the king formally in the constitution were reinforced by the inability of the (s)elected politicians to reach consensus among themselves, partly due to the usually oversized nature of the governing coalition, resulting in a situation where it was near impossible for the parties of the government to reach agreement on a coherent policy platform and push legislation through parliament. Consequently, on more than one occasion, the king stepped in and acted as the primus motor, a reality that gained him tremendous goodwill among a highly depoliticized population that was much more concerned with the lack of action than with who got things done and was seriously dejected by the petty squabbles among the parties of the governing coalition and, at times, within the parties themselves. Hence, playing the various parties out against each other (and encouraging the formation of new entities to add to the complexity) soon became a royal “sport,” and it did not take long for the monarch and the members of his inner circle to become very adept at this, thereby fortifying the powers of the monarchy considerably vis-à-vis the political parties. In short, prior to the Arab Spring, Morocco was certainly not a parliamentary democracy, not even at a stretch, but the fault clearly did not lie solely with those writing the constitution, but also with the political parties themselves and with individual politicians who showed a distinct lack of political maturity. The Arab Spring and Its Effects on the Party Landscape

Given the strength of the Moroccan monarchy at the time of the outbreak of the Arab Spring, both in terms of formal powers and popular trust, it is not

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difficult to understand why it was relatively easy for Mohammed VI to weather the storm, which was, admittedly, much less fierce than that in neighboring Tunisia. As a consequence of his swift reaction to the spread of the Arab Spring from Tunisia into Morocco in early 2011, which saw Mohammed VI promise the drafting of a new constitution and the moving forward of the legislative elections originally scheduled for 2012, the king emerged from the protests strengthened rather than weakened. The king did not only come across as decisive, however. He also emerged strengthened as a consequence of the nature of the political reforms introduced. Most notably, the revision of the constitution hardly dented the monarch’s powers. Yes, more power was afforded the prime minister and parliament, but at the same time the creation of a new institution, the supreme security council, ensured that the king not only had an emergency brake, but also a very powerful tool for tabling and adopting new legislation. Mohammed VI’s position as the most decisive figure in Moroccan politics was further fortified by the holding of legislative elections, which ushered in a new government headed by an entirely “green” prime minister—not green in the sense that Abdelilah Benkirane and his team were new to politics at the highest level, but because it was the first time that the Parti de la Justice et du Développement (PJD) (and an Islamist party, for that matter) found itself in government. Moreover, the PJD would not simply be a member of the new coalition, it would be leading the coalition, and that without much help from its partners, which were, of course, keen to ensure that the PJD did not do too well at their expense. Consequently, it did not take long for the PJD to adapt to the rules of the game, consulting frequently with the monarchy and adopting a line acceptable to the king and his entourage. In fact, in an interview with La Vie Éco on August 3, 2012, Benkirane declared that the king “reste le président du Conseil des ministres et le supérieur hiérarchique des ministres” [remains the president of the Council of Ministers and the hierarchical superior of the ministers], thereby underlining his acceptance of Mohammed VI’s elevated position within political life.3 There was no doubt that rather than the political system having democratized as a consequence of the Arab Spring, the PJD had completely makhzenized, thereby leaving the electorate with very little hope of significant change occurring peacefully from within the system. In short, Morocco had plenty of political parties after the onset of the Arab Spring, but none of the sizeable, relevant ones were genuinely new entities, and none was interested in changing the status quo in the sense of (1) the parties transforming into vehicles of citizen representation and mobilization and (2) the executive monarchy becoming a parliamentary democracy. There was simply too much at stake given their patronage party character (as discussed later in the text). As in Morocco, things remained much the same in Algeria following the onset of the Arab Spring. In fact, even more so. Apart from the ending of the state of emergency, which was effectively meaningless, as state vio-

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lence continued, no grand political reforms were introduced. Admittedly, legislative elections were held, but they had always been scheduled for spring 2012. Moreover, the elections were heavily rigged, produced the same winners (the regime party duo), and the new cabinet, which consisted to a large extent of the usual suspects, did not see the light of day until some four months after the elections had been held. Finally, a new constitution was promised, but nothing much seemed to be happening. In short, after the Arab Spring, Algeria was still ruled by the all-powerful Bouteflika, the army remained a key political actor, while the political parties were still without much influence. The most influential parties, the FLN and the RND, maintained their dominant positions among the political parties, continuing to dominate the new cabinet once it was eventually revealed. Whereas the Arab Spring did not usher in great changes in Morocco as a consequence of the king’s craftsmanship—rapidly introducing seemingly important, but effectively toothless, political reforms (that were largely designed by the makhzen)—Bouteflika weathered the storm in Algeria due to the sporadic nature of the protests, combined with a widespread inherent fear of another bloody civil war. Most people were afraid that the overthrow of Bouteflika, or even the demise of the FLN and its junior partner, would lead to a situation that would quickly spin out of control as the strongest alternative forces appeared to remain the army and the Islamists, the two main warring parties of the civil war. This reluctance to rock the boat meant that the protests that did take place in Algeria in the name of the Arab Spring were relatively small if compared to those organized in Morocco and Tunisia, and they were also not coordinated in any greater sense, meaning that the demands put forward varied greatly from one protest to another, depending on local priorities rather than shared national objectives. There was, in other words, no national protest movement for Bouteflika to quell, but simply loose gatherings of dissatisfied citizens to harass, shut down, or prevent. Not a difficult job for a powerful president with the army and the majority of the relevant parties on his side. Tunisia, where the Arab Spring originated, was where the real change took place. President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who had been in office for decades, was overthrown and replaced with a new president from a party that had been prohibited under the previous regime. Scores of new political parties were established and legalized, and truly competitive legislative elections were held—elections that saw nineteen parties succeed in obtaining seats in parliament, the vast majority of them new entrants, but not new entities. And this is where the limits to the change lie. While the Arab Spring (or the Jasmine Revolution as it is often called with reference to the Tunisian case) did usher in a new era, the key actors were far from novel. In other words, although the Arab Spring resulted in the opening up of the political system as well as the party system, the latter changing from a hegemonic

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party system into a case of limited pluralism (i.e., a party system with a handful of relevant parties), these entities were not newly established. Some were previously very small (and therefore not relevant), while others entered parliament for the very first time but had either existed for several years or were the result of recent fissions from already existing parties. In short, they were not created as a consequence of popular pressure, they were not formed due to Arab Spring protesters’ coming together in order to establish a durable political platform, and they were not externally created. They were essentially new personal vehicles for already familiar faces.

Party Orientation: Office-, Vote-, or Policy-Seeking? Sadly, there is no denying that even in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the vast majority of the political parties in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia remained personal vehicles. Parties were generally established as a consequence of splinters within an already existing party (i.e., fissions) as those at the top squabbled over the division of power, with the loser leaving to set up a party of his own and taking his supporters with him (see Table 9.2). None of the parties that became relevant as a direct result of the Arab Spring was externally created with the exception of the al-Aridha (PP) in Tunisia, whose leader—although a familiar face due to his ownership of the television station al-Moustaquilla—was not already an experienced politician. The (now defunct) PP was not, however, created with a view to represent the citizenry, but instead was an extremely populist outfit formed in order to catapult party leader Hachmi Hamdi into power. The reality that virtually all of the relevant parties in the Maghreb were internally (rather than externally) created has undoubtedly shaped the character of the parties over the years. Created largely with a view to promote the individual at the head of the party, rather than in an effort to push a spe-

Table 9.2 Party Origins: Fusions and Fissions from Independence to the Present (in percentage)

Algeriaa Morocco Tunisia

Fissions/Fusions (total parties)

Fusions

Fissions

“New” Parties

Relevant Externally Created (post–Arab Spring)

51.1 69.2 44.4

4.4 9.6 2.6

48.9 59.6 39.5

48.9 30.8 57.9

— — 7.7

Source: Based on Figures 3.2, 5.2, and 7.2. Note: a. Please note that the FLN was the result of both a fusion and a fission. Hence, for Algeria there are 46 cases, but only 45 parties.

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cific policy agenda, most of the parties carried patronage party potential already from the outset, although these traits did not always develop fully until well after a party’s formation. More important in shaping the development of the various relevant parties over time was the nature of the political system in which the parties operated, that is, the environment. Over the years, as it became clear that the incumbent regimes were either strongly entrenched (as in the case of the Moroccan executive monarchy) or that the demise of one strongman was only likely to give rise to another equally undemocratic leader (as evident in both the Algerian and Tunisian cases), the political parties, including in some cases the regime vehicle, eventually adapted to the environment. At the time of the last legislative elections to be held in the three Maghrebi countries prior to the Arab Spring, most of the (sizeable) relevant political parties had become patronage parties in some form or another, courting the head of state and/or the regime vehicle(s) (see Figure 9.1). Consequently, many parties were heavily reliant on state benefits and privileges, their election campaign was capital (rather than labor) intensive, and they had, accordingly, very little interest in the electorate outside of election time. Their main objective was to form a cartel with other parties,

Figure 9.1 Locating the Maghrebi Parties Vote-seeking

Patronage party Cartel party

Policy-seeking

Office-seeking

Source: Adapted from Wolinetz (2002: 161). Note: The circles indicate the concentration of the Maghrebi parties. Those areas that are particularly populated are shaded.

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thereby maintaining their privileged position within political life vis-à-vis the other parties on the scene. It is therefore of little surprise that these parties were virtually exclusively office-seeking, refraining from developing strong policy platforms; policy was simply not a priority and also carried the risk of scaring away potential partners. Not all of the patronage parties were of the cartel party variant, however. Some—usually those farthest removed from the regime, and with a potential to attract a sizeable proportion of the electorate—were vote-seeking, aiming to win enough votes that they could not be overlooked in the government formation process. In other words, while the primary objective of this group of parties remained access to patronage, the strategy adopted differed from that of the cartel parties. Party Orientation and the Arab Spring

In Algeria and Morocco, where the dynamics of the political system remained much the same as they had prior to the Arab Spring, the political parties changed very little in terms of outlook. The majority (albeit far from all) of the relevant parties remained patronage parties, although in both cases there was some movement away from the cartel party variant as a number of the more sizeable parties changed their strategy and transformed from office-seeking into vote-seeking entities. The objective still remained the same, though: access to patronage. The Tunisian case was very different. Due to the overthrow of Ben Ali, the sudden explosion in legal political parties, and the promise of truly competitive elections, uncertainty had suddenly become a key element of politics. It was not clear which party was going to win the elections, whether the government formed in the wake of the elections would take the form of an oversized coalition, who would put themselves forward as a candidate for the presidency, and which presidential candidate would win the (s)election process in parliament. For the first time in postindependence history, Tunisia was about to hold democratic legislative elections, the outcome of which would profoundly shape politics for many years to come as the elected representatives would be designing the country’s future institutions. While the elections were free and fair, and also highly competitive, it was clear from the outset that some parties were going to have an easier time attracting voters than others—that is, the parties that had formed the backbone of the clandestine opposition during Ben Ali’s reign and whose leaders were therefore not only familiar faces to most Tunisians, but also associated with alternation. This new free environment naturally brought party change with it (in a vote-seeking direction), although the extent of the change was somewhat limited given that the most successful of the parties in the 2011 elections were all newly legalized. Rather curiously, or perhaps more a reflection of the nature of twenty-first-century politics (whether in

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the Maghreb or elsewhere), the majority of the Tunisian parties proved themselves to be patronage parties at the time of the first post–Arab Spring elections as they courted one or more of the two predicted winners—the former chief opposition entities, the Congrès pour la République (CPR) and the Ennahda. In other words, despite the markedly more free political environment, the majority of the relevant parties, regardless of whether old or newly legalized, behaved along the same lines as those in Morocco, in particular, but also as many of those in Algeria. That said, it is important to underline that the Tunisian parties were notably more vote-seeking, undoubtedly due to the open contest now that the regime vehicle had gone and as a consequence of the changed dynamics of the political system in the wake of the demise of the former patron. Moreover, it should be highlighted that given the emphasis on vote-seeking and policy-seeking, in addition to the dominant strategy of office-seeking, the Ennahda and the CPR came across as much more holistic, not only as compared to their Tunisian counterparts, but also vis-à-vis those in Algeria and Morocco.

System Legitimacy and Prospects for Democracy Taking into account the reality that virtually all of the relevant, sizeable political parties in the Maghreb were internally created, personal vehicles, combined with the fact that very few of these parties were policy-oriented, it is perhaps not so surprising that voter apathy remained high in the region even in the wake of the Arab Spring. That said, given the fall of the Ben Ali regime, the establishment of a multiparty system, and the introduction of free, fair, and genuinely competitive elections, most observers had not expected to see an abstention rate in the neighborhood of 50 percent at the time of the Tunisian legislative elections of 2011 (see Figure 9.2). Of course, the sharp increase in abstention could to some extent be explained by the reality that the voting statistics were no longer manipulated by the regime prior to their release. However, there is also no denying that the figures sent a clear sign of voter dissatisfaction with the choice of candidates presented to them on polling day. The lack of system legitimacy is where the real threat to democracy lies. The reality that, in the cases of Algeria and Morocco, it is clear to everyone that it is not possible to hold those at the center of power accountable has led to a situation where, despite various political reforms of varying degrees of significance, very few people have faith in the democratic process. From the perspective of the electorate, voting makes some sense as votes do count in the government formation process, but not any more than they did prior to the Arab Spring. The process of elections has not changed markedly in either of the two countries. From the perspective

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Figure 9.2 Abstention Rates (legislative)

of the political parties, the situation is also much the same. None of the political parties is under the illusion that it has a decisive say in how politics is conducted. The ultimate source of power remains the king in Morocco and President Bouteflika and his army allies in Algeria. The Arab Spring has not altered these dynamics and therefore has not restored the public faith in democracy that was present when the two countries first gained independence. In Tunisia, the dynamics of the political system changed significantly, and while the party system also underwent important transformation, the main entities within it were far from novel. The electorate was not, accordingly, presented with new faces on election day, and the party system therefore appeared institutionalized, just like those of Algeria and Morocco.4 Has the Arab Spring Failed?

Potential democratic moments are few and far between, and the Middle East and North Africa—including the Maghreb—have seen precious few of them. Notwithstanding the Arab Spring protests, the incumbent regimes of Algeria and Morocco survived, and more important, new forces for change did not emerge. While some would argue that it is too soon to talk of the aftermath

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of the Arab Spring, which would indicate that the Arab Spring is over, the findings of my analysis in the previous chapters indicate that at least in the Maghreb, the Arab Spring must be said to have come to an end. Of course, protests still occur, and the electorate remains dissatisfied, but there is also no denying that not a single significant, lasting vehicle for peaceful political change emerged in any of the three Maghrebi states. The Arab Spring protests did not give rise to political parties representing and mobilizing the electorate, and it certainly does not look like any are about to emerge. The question is, then, has the Arab Spring failed? While it is undoubtedly a harsh conclusion, it seems by no means unfair to say that at least in the Algerian and Moroccan cases, yes, the Arab Spring has failed. Or, more kindly put, the opportunity for genuine regime change has been wasted. With regard to Algeria, Bouteflika’s announced departure in 2014 presents a further potential democratic moment, that is, if Bouteflika decides to keep his word and actually does retire. As discussed in Chapter 8, however, the event seems unlikely to usher in significant change given the strong position of the army within political life, a position that may well strengthen when Bouteflika leaves. In other words, the most probable short-term future scenario for Algeria remains status quo in the sense of the continuation of authoritarian rule. One military-backed dictator will simply substitute for another. With regard to the Tunisian case, the situation is different. At present, prior to the adoption of the new constitution, the Arab Spring cannot be said to constitute a failure. Ben Ali’s authoritarian regime has been replaced by a democratic regime, even if taking into account that President Moncef Marzouki is (s)elected by parliament, rather than directly elected. That said, it is still too early to determine the extent of the success of the Arab Spring in Tunisia. Much depends on the provisions of the new constitution, whose adoption has been postponed due to difficulties in reaching agreement on the most desirable political system, with some parties arguing in favor of presidentialism and others in favor of parliamentarianism. Finally, the extent of the success of the Arab Spring also depends on the outcome of the upcoming presidential elections, which will be held soon after the adoption of the new constitution. In the worst-case scenario, Tunisia will see the election of a president from the party heading the government, thereby creating a situation similar to that of the past—one in which a single party effectively dominates politics. At present, all that is certain is that the new Tunisian democracy is very fragile indeed. The Onset of an Islamist Winter?

In the aftermath of the first post–Arab Spring elections, Tunisian politics is largely dominated by an Islamist party, the Ennahda, although the party does by no means have carte blanche to rule as it sees fit, not only because

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it is part of a coalition government, but also because the presidency is held by another party. Yet, the considerable victory of the Ennahda in the 2011 elections has given rise to serious concern, not only among secularists in Tunisia, but also among observers abroad. The same is to some extent the case in Morocco, where the first post–Arab Spring elections also resulted in the formation of a government headed by an Islamist party, the PJD. Notwithstanding the fact that the PJD, like the Ennahda, is heading a coalition government and the reality that real power lies with the monarch, concerned voices have been raised both within and outside Morocco. In fact, with the electoral victory of Islamists in countries such as Turkey, Palestine, Tunisia, Egypt, and Morocco, academics and practitioners alike have begun to talk of the onset of a so-called Islamist Winter—a winter in the sense of the freezing of hope, and in some cases even in the sense of a setback for democracy. Based on the analysis carried out in the preceding chapters, the view taken here is certainly not one of an onset of an Islamist Winter in the Maghreb, that is, if this is to be understood as a democratic setback along the lines of a move toward theocracy. Neither the PJD nor the Ennahda are radical Islamist parties in the sense that they seek to transform their respective countries into theocracies. Yes, the rhetoric of some members of the top echelons of the two parties may, at times, have been rather radical, but there is no denying that over the past few decades, the PJD and the Ennahda have transformed considerably, and the leadership of both parties consists of skilled politicians with clear political ambitions within the current political framework. Moreover, these Islamist parties do not operate within a political vacuum. They are components within multiparty systems, and as things look at the moment (as far as the character of the party systems and the nature of the election framework), no political party will be able to govern on its own in either country; it is simply not possible for a party to obtain an absolute majority as things stand at present. Furthermore, there is the all-important head of state. In Morocco, the monarchy, aided by the makhzen, would put a swift end to the PJD’s powerful position should the party not play by the rules of the game. In Tunisia, president Marzouki is perhaps not strong enough to stop the Ennahda on his own should the party rather unexpectedly move in a very radical direction, but as the protests and continuous scrutiny of the party’s actions in the months following the Ennahda’s election victory bear witness to, there is not much chance that the other political parties, or the citizenry for that matter, would let the Islamists get away with a theocratic project. Moreover, as the events surrounding the assassination of the opposition figure Chorki Belaïd in February 2013 bear witness to, abuses of power in Tunisia can be effectively curbed by the populace, the opposition parties, and members of the governing coalition in unison

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(and possibly also alone), and in that particular case, when Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali attempted to form a new cabinet composed entirely of technocrats, even his own party uttered strong misgivings (Ayari 2013; BBC News 2013; Kozlowski 2013). In short, many Moroccans and Tunisians may be conservative, and some may even see benefits in being ruled by a strong leader, but very few believe in the merits of an Islamic state if this is to be understood as a theocracy, and most would certainly not want to experience authoritarian regression regardless of its format.5

Notes 1. Electoral engineering and fraud were also popular tools in Morocco. 2. As also illustrated by the preliminary and first-round results of the aborted legislative elections of 1991. 3. See also “Mohammed VI: ‘Le chef du gouvernement doit être blindé,’” August 6, 2012, available at http://www.bladi.net/mohammed-6-chef-gouvernementblinde.html. 4. For more on this debate, please consult the work of Brumberg (2002, 2003, 2005). 5. For a high-profile, recent input into the debate, see Marzouki (2012).

Appendix A: Legislative Elections in Morocco, 1963–2011

Table A.1 Percentage of Votes and Seats in the Elections to the House of Representatives, 1963 Party

Votes

Seats

FDIC PI UNFP Independents

34.8 30.0 22.5 12.6

47.6 28.3 20.0 4.1

Sources: García 2000: 21; Pereira and Fernández 1999: 634; Storm 2007: 25.

Table A.2 Percentage of Votes and Seats (popularly elected) in the Elections to the House of Representatives, 1970–1977 1970 Party Independents MP Progrès Social PI UNFP PDI MPDC PA USFP PPS

Votes

Seats

Total Seats (parliament)a

n/a n/a n/a boycottb boycottb boycottb

n/a n/a n/a boycottb boycottb boycottb

65.8 25.0 4.2 (3.8) (0.8) (0.4)

1977 Votes

Seats

44.7 12.4

46.3 16.6

21.6 0.2 0.2 2.0 1.8 14.6 2.3

25.7 — — 1.1 1.1 8.6 0.6

Sources: Europa 1971: 491; García 2000: 29, 63; Pereira and Fernández 1999: 634; Storm 2007: 29. Notes: a. Direct and indirect elections. b. The PI, the UNFP, and the PDI boycotted the elections. Candidates still ran on these parties’ lists, but they had not been authorized by the parties themselves.

191

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Table A.3 Percentage of Votes and Seats in the Elections to the House of Representatives, 1984–1997 Party UC RNI MP PI USFP PND PPS OADP MPDC PA PDI Independents MNP MDS FFD PSD

1984a Votes Seats

1993a Votes Seats

1997 Votes Seats

24.8 17.2 15.6 15.3 12.4 8.9 2.3 0.7

12.8 13.2 12.1 12.2 13.2 8.0 3.9 3.1

12.2 12.6 14.9 19.4 21.6 6.3 2.7 0.9

2.3 4.1 4.1 10.6

0.9 1.4 0.9 6.3

10.2 11.1 10.3 13.2 13.9 4.2 4.3 2.9 4.1 1.4 1.2

15.4 14.2 12.3 9.8 17.5 3.1 2.8 1.2 2.8 0.6 0.3

6.8 9.5 3.8 3.0

5.8 9.8 2.8 1.5

27.6 19.1 15.6 11.6 17.1 7.5 1.0 0.5

Sources: García 2000: 189, 242; Storm 2007: 49, 65, 81; Tozy 1999: 242.

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Table A.4 Percentage of Votes and Seats in the Elections to the House of Representatives, 2002 Party

Local Votes

Local Seats

USFP PI PJD RNI MP MNP UC PND FFD PPS UD MDS PSD PAA ADL PRD PML PGSU PFC PED PDI CNI

11.8 9.8 9.8 9.2 6.5 5.1 5.1 4.5 4.9 4.5 4.0 2.7 2.9 2.3 2.2 1.8 1.3 1.3 1.7 1.5 1.0 2.0

15.3 14.9 12.9 12.5 8.5 5.4 4.7 3.4 3.4 3.1 3.1 2.4 2.0 1.7 1.4 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.7 0.7 0.7 0.3

National Votesa n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a

National Seats

Total Seats

16.7 13.3 13.3 13.3 6.7 6.7 6.7 6.7 6.7 6.7 3.3 — — — — — — — — — — —

15.4 14.8 12.9 12.6 8.3 5.5 4.9 3.7 3.7 3.4 3.1 2.2 1.8 1.5 1.2 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.3

Sources: IFES 2002, www.electionguide.org; García 2005: 79; Storm 2007: 92; 2008: 46–47. Note: a. The national list was intended for women candidates, although men were not prohibited from running. In line with the objective of increasing the number of female representatives in parliament via the national list, very few male candidates were put forward.

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Table A.5 Percentage of Votes and Seats in the Elections to the House of Representatives, 2007 Party USFP PI PJD RNI MP UC PND PPS FFD MDS PAA ADL PND-PAA PFC PED CNI PADS-CNI-PSU Independents PT PRE UMD PS PRV

Local Votes

Local Seats

National Votesa

National Seats

Total Seats

8.9 10.7 10.9 9.7 9.3 7.3 1.2 5.4 4.5 3.7 1.3 0.8

11.2 15.6 13.6 11.5 12.2 9.2 1.0 4.7 3.1 3.1 1.0 0.3

0.7 2.9 0.6

0.3 1.7 0.3

1.8 3.0 1.8 1.7 1.5 0.8

1.7 1.7 1.4 0.7 0.7 0.3

9.5 11.8 13.4 10.5 10.0 —b —c 6.2 4.9 4.0 —c — 5.3 0.8 3.3 —c 2.9 — 3.4 2.3 1.9 1.7 1.0

16.7 20.0 20.0 16.7 16.7 —b —c — 10.0 — —c — — — — —c — — — — — — —

11.7 16.0 14.2 12.0 12.6 8.3 0.9 5.2 2.8 2.8 0.9 0.3 2.5 0.3 1.5 0.3 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.2 0.6 0.6 0.3

Sources: Kirhlani 2009: 5; García 2005: 79; Storm 2007: 92. Notes: a. The national list was intended for women candidates, although men were not prohibited from running. In line with the objective of increasing the number of female representatives in parliament via the national list, very few male candidates were put forward. b. The UC was barred from contesting the national seats as the list the party intended to present included a candidate that did not meet the age requirement. c. A number of smaller parties chose to form alliances when contesting the national seats. Hence two joint lists were presented, one consisting of candidates from the PAA and the PND, and another putting forward the candidates of the PADS, the CNI, and the PSU.

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Table A.6 Percentage of Votes and Seats in the Elections to the House of Representatives, 2011 Party

Local Votes

Local Seats

National Votesa

National Seats

Total Seats

USFP PI PJD RNI MP UC PPS FFD MDS PA PT PRE PLJS PAM PGV PEDD PAD PUD

8.6 11.9 22.8 11.3 7.5 5.8 5.7 2.8 1.7 0.3 2.3 n/a n/a 11.1 0.7 2.3 n/a n/a

9.8 13.4 27.2 13.1 7.9 5.6 3.9 0.3 0.7 0.3 1.3 0.7 0.3 11.5 0.3 0.7 0.7 0.3

8.6 11.9 22.8 11.3 7.5 5.8 5.7 2.8 1.7 0.3 2.3 — — 11.1 0.7 2.3 — —

10.0 14.4 26.7 13.3 8.9 6.7 6.7 — — — — — — 13.3 — — — —

9.9 15.2 27.1 13.2 8.1 5.8 4.6 0.3 0.5 0.3 1.0 0.5 0.3 11.9 0.3 0.5 0.5 0.3

Sources: Kirhlani 2009: 5; García 2005: 79; Storm 2007: 92; and the Moroccan Ministry of the Interior at http://www.maroc.ma/PortailInst/Fr/logoevenementiel/Dossier+Elections.htm. Note: a. In a response to the Arab Spring protests, the number of national seats was increased from thirty to ninety. Moreover, whereas these seats had previously been intended for women only, they were now dedicated to increasing the number of youth as well as female representatives in parliament (L’Economiste 2011).

Appendix B: Legislative and Presidential Elections in Tunisia, 1956–2012

Table B.1 Percentage of Votes and Seats in the Elections to the House of Representatives, 1956–1979 1956

1959

1964–1979

Party

Votes

Seats

Votes

Seats

Votes

Seats

PSDa

98.7

100

99.7

100

100

100

Sources: Inter-Parliamentary Union (www.ipu.org); Montabes Pereira 1999: 918. Note: a. Neo-Destour until 1964.

Table B.2 Percentage of Votes and Seats in the Elections to the House of Representatives, 1981–1989 1981

1986

1989

Party

Votes

Seats

Votes

Seats

PSDa RCDb

94.8

100

97.9

100

Votes

Seats

80.5

100

Sources: Daoud 1989: 703; Inter-Parliamentary Union (www.ipu.org); Martínez Fuentes and Montabes Pereira 2010: 207–211; Montabes Pereira 1999: 918. Notes: a. Front National in 1981; Union Patriotique/Unité Nationale in 1986. b. Formerly the PSD.

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Table B.3 Percentage of Votes and Seats in the Elections to the House of Representatives, 1994–2004 1994

1999

2004

Party

Votes

Seats

Votes

Seats

Votes

Seats

RCD MDS Ettajdidc PUP UDU PSLd

97.7 1.1 0.4 0.3 0.3

88.3 6.1 2.5 1.2 1.8

91.6 3.2 1.4 1.7 1.7 0.5

81.3 7.1 2.7 3.8 3.8 1.0

87.7 4.6 1.0 3.6 2.2 0.6

80.4 7.4 1.5 5.8 3.7 1.0e

Sources: Inter-Parliamentary Union (www.ipu.org); Martínez Fuentes and Montabes Pereira 2010: 207–211. Notes: a. Of the 163 seats, 144 were reserved for the RCD. b. Only 34 seats out of 182 were to be contested by the opposition. c. Known as the PCT until 1993. d. Formerly the PSP (until 1993). e. In 2004, one seat originally went to the PVP, which later merged with the PSL.

199

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Table B.4 Percentage of Votes and Seats in the Elections to the House of Representatives, 2009–2011 2009

2011

Party

Votes

Seats

Votes

Seats

RCD MDS Ettajdida Ennahda PUP UDU PSDL PVP FDTL PDP CPR PCOT PP PDM LI AT MP MPD UPL PLM PNSD MPUP PNCU Parti Néodestourien PLP Independents

84.6 4.6 0.5

75.2 7.5 0.9

0.5

0.9

34.8

41.0

3.4 2.6 2.2 1.7

5.6 4.2 3.7 2.8 6.6 3.7 8.2 1.4 6.5 2.6 3.0 1.8 0.7 0.83 1.2 0.3 0.4 0.19 0.4 0.38 0.25 1.54

9.2 7.4 13.4 1.4 12.0 2.3 2.3 1.8 0.9 0.9 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 4.6

Sources: L’Instance Supérieure Indépendante pour les Élections (www.isie.tn); Inter-Parliamentary Union (www.ipu.org); United Nations Development Programme–Programme on Governance in the

200

Appendix

Table B.5 Results of the Presidential Elections, 1999 Party

Candidate

RCD PUP UDU

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Mohamed Belhaj Amor Abderrahmane Tlili

Number of Votes

Percentage

3,269,067 10,492 7,662

99.4 0.3 0.2

Source: Martínez Fuentes and Montabes Pereira 2010: 204.

Table B.6 Results of the Presidential Elections, 2004 Party

Candidate

RCD PUP Ettajdid PSL

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Mohamed Bouchiha Mohamed Ali Halouani Mounir Béji

Number of Votes

Percentage

4,203,897 167,986 42,211 35,064

94.5 3.8 0.9 0.8

Source: Martínez Fuentes and Montabes Pereira 2010: 204.

Table B.7 Results of the Presidential Elections, 2009 Party

Candidate

RCD PUP UDU Ettajdid

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Mohamed Bouchiha Ahmed Inoubli Ahmed Brahim

Number of Votes

Percentage

4,238,711 236,955 176,726 74,257

89.7 5.0 3.7 1.6

Source: UNDP-POGAR. See http://www.pogar.org/publications/elections/results/executive /tunisia-2009-f.pdf.

Appendix C: Legislative and Presidential Elections in Algeria, 1962–2012

Table C.1 Percentage of Votes and Seats in the National Assembly Elections, 1962–1987 Party

1962a

1964b

1977b

1982b

1987b

FLN

100

100

100

100

100

Sources: Inter-Parliamentary Union (www.ipu.org); Stone 1997: 44–45; Kapil1994: 16; Axtman 2003: 20. Notes: a. The 180 candidates for the 1962 National Assembly elections were selected by the FLN’s Political Bureau established by Ben Bella on July 22, 1962. Hence, although officially not all the candidates contesting the elections were members of the FLN, they are counted as such. The Political Bureau consisted of Ahmed Ben Bella, Mohamed Boudiaf, Hocine Aït Ahmed, Mohamed Khider, Rabbah Bitat, Saïd Mohammedi, and Hadj Benalla (Stone 1997: 44–45; Stora 2001: 127). b. As in 1962, the single lists were drawn up by the FLN, but not all candidates on these lists were members of the party (Axtman 2003: 20).

201

202

Appendix

Table C.2 Percentage of Votes and Seats in the National Assembly Elections, 1991 Party FIS FLN FFS Independents

Votes (round 1)

Seats (round 1)

Seats (round 2)a

Seats (total)

47.3 23.4 7.4 4.5

81.0 6.9 10.8 1.3

— — — —

43.7 3.7 5.8 0.7

Sources: Kapil 1994: 26; Axtman 1999: 57. Notes: The second round of elections was canceled, and a parliament formed on the basis of the first round of results was never convened. a. The second round was supposed to take the form of runoffs. The FIS was to contest 186, with the party’s candidate being the favorite in 144 of these runoffs. The FLN was set to contest 171 (being the favorite in 44), the FFS 19 (favorite in 4), and the independent candidates 6 (being the favorite in only 1). See Kapil 1994: 26.

203

Appendix

Table C.3 Percentage of Votes and Seats in the National Assembly Elections, 1997–2012 Party FLN RND FFS RCD PT Independents MRIa MSPb PRP UDL PSL MRNc FNA PRA MEN MJD ANR ME FNIC AHD 54 PNSD MNE RPR RA FND MDS AAVd FJD MPA HFJ FC FNJS UFDS FM PJ MCL PED PK

1997 Votes Seats

2002 Votes Seats

Votes

14.3 33.7 5.0 4.2 1.9 4.4 8.7 14.8 0.6 0.5 0.4

34.3 8.2

51.3 12.1

23.0 10.3

35.0 15.7

3.3 4.9 0.6 7.0

5.4 7.7 0.3 9.8

2.9 5.1 9.9 2.9 8.3

4.9 4.4 8.4 1.3 13.4

9.5 1.6 0.3 0.2

11.1 2.1 0.3 0.3

2.2 3.6 1.6 1.8 2.0 1.9 2.2 1.7 1.9 1.8 1.5 1.3 1.5 1.8 0.8

0.8 3.3 1.0 1.0 1.3 1.0 0.8 0.8 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.3 0.3 0.3

16.3 41.1 5.3 5.0 1.1 2.9 8.9 18.2 0.8 0.3 0.3

2007 Seats

Votes

2012 Seats

17.3 6.9 2.5

45.0 14.7 5.8

3.7 8.8

5.2 3.9

2.6 1.5

1.9 0.2

1.4 1.5 1.4 1.6 1.5 1.6 1.5 1.5 1.3

0.6 0.2 0.2 0.6 0.9 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.2

6.2 3.0 2.2 1.7 2.3 1.8 1.5 2.3 1.3 1.5 0.6 1.7

10.6 1.7 1.5 1.1 0.9 0.6 0.6 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.4 0.4

Sources: Democracy Reporting International 2007: 7; Inter-Parliamentary Union; International Foundation for Electoral Systems; International Crisis Group 2003: 14–15; Axtman 1999: 57; 2003: 27; author’s correspondence with The Moor Next Door. Notes: a. Also known as Harakat an-Nahda al-Islamiyya. b. Formerly the Hamas. c. Also known as el-Islah. d. The AAV comprised the MSP, the MRN, and the MRI.

204

Appendix

Table C.4 Results of the Presidential Elections, 1995 Party

Candidate

Independent (army) MSP RCD PRA

Liamine Zéroual Mahfoud Nahnah Saïd Sadi Noureddine Boukrou

Number of Votes

Percentage

7,088,618 2,971,974 1,115,796 443,144

61.0 25.6 9.6 3.8

Source: Axtman 1999: 60.

Table C.5 Results of the Presidential Elections, 1999 Party

Candidate

Independent (FLN)a Independent (FIS) MRN Independent (FLN)a Independent (RND) Independent FFS

Abdelaziz Bouteflika Ahmed Taleb el-Ibrahimi Abdallah Djaballah Mouloud Hamrouche Mokdad Sifi Youcef Khatib Hocine Aït Ahmed

Number of Votes

Percentage

7,444,045 1,265,594 400,080 314,160 226,139 121,414 32,179

73.8 (12.5)b (4.0)b (3.1)b (2.2)b (1.2)b (0.3)b

Sources: BBC News 1999; the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) at http://www.electionguide.org/results.php?ID=740. Notes: a. The FLN ran two candidates, one supported by the army (Bouteflika) and another supported by the reformist wing—the former prime minister Ali Benflis. b. These candidates and their parties all boycotted the elections. Yet, somehow they managed to obtain votes.

205

Appendix

Table C.6 Results of the Presidential Elections, 2004 Party

Candidate

FLNa

Abdelaziz Bouteflika Ali Benflis Abdallah Djaballah Saïd Sadi Louisa Hanoune Ali Fawzi Rebaïne

FLNa MRN RCD PT AHD 54

Number of Votes

Percentage

8,651,723 653,951 511,526 197,111 101,630 63,761

85.0 6.4 5.0 1.9 1.0 0.6

Source: IFES online (http://www.electionguide.org/ results.php?ID=203). Note: a. As a consequence of a serious fallout between Bouteflika and Benflis supporters following the latter’s appointment as secretary-general of the party in 2003, the FLN was effectively two parties at the time of the 2004 elections.

Table C.7 Results of the Presidential Elections, 2009 Party

Candidate

FLN PT FNA MRN Independent (PLJ) AHD 54

Abdelaziz Bouteflika Louisa Hanoune Moussa Touati Djahid Younsi Mohamed Saïd Belaïd Ali Fawzi Rebaïne

Sources: Bouandel 2009: 248, 251; Boukrine 2009.

Number of Votes

Percentage

12,911,705 604,258 330,570 176,674 132,242 133,129

90.2 4.2 2.3 1.4 0.9 0.9

Appendix D: Acronyms

AAV ADL AHD 54 AKP ALM ALN AMDH AML ANR AT CAM CDT CGEM CGT CLTA CNAM

Alliance de l’Algérie Verte (Green Alliance of Algeria) Alliance des Libertés (Alliance of Liberties; Morocco) Ahd 54 (Pledge 54; Algeria) Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party; Turkey) Armée de Libération Marocaine (Moroccan Army of Liberation) Armée de Libération Nationale (Army of National Liberation) Association Marocaine des Droits Humains (Moroccan Human Rights Association) Amis du Manifeste et de la Liberté (Friends of the Manifesto and Liberty; Algeria) Alliance Nationale Républicaine (National Republican Alliance; Algeria) Afek Tounes (Tunisian Aspirations) Comité d’Action Marocaine (National Action Bloc; Morocco) Confédération Démocratique du Travail (Democratic Confederation of Labor; Morocco) Confédération Générale des Entreprises du Maroc (General Confederation of Moroccan Businesses) Congrès Général du Travail (General Congress of Labor; Morocco) Comité de Liaison des Travailleurs Algériens (Algerian Workers’ Liaison Committee) Comité National de Soutien au Mouvement du 20 Février (The National Committee of Support for the 20 February Movement; Morocco) 207

208 CNCD CNI CNLT CPR CRUA ENA FAM FAN FC FD FDIC FDTL FFD FFS FIS FJD FLN FM FNA FND FNIC FNJS FPTP G8 GEAST Hamas HFJ

Appendix

Coordination Nationale pour le Changement et la Démocratie (National Coordination for Change and Democracy; Algeria) Congrès National Ittihadi (National Ittihadi Congress Party; Morocco) Comité National pour les Libertés en Tunisie (National Committee for Freedoms in Tunisia) Congrès pour la République (Congress for the Republic; Tunisia) Comité Révolutionnaire pour le Unité et l’Action (Revolutionary Committee for Unity and Action; Algeria) Étoile Nord-Africaine (North African Star; Algeria) Front de l’Algérie Moderne (Front for the Modern Algeria) Front de l’Algérie Nouvelle (Front for the New Algeria) Front du Changement (Front for Change; Algeria) Fidélité a la Démocratie (Loyalty to Democracy; Morocco) Front de Défense des Institutions Constitutionnelles (Front for the Defense of Constitutional Institutions; Morocco) Forum Démocratique pour le Travail et les Libertés or Ettakol (Democratic Forum for Labor and Liberties; Tunisia) Front des Forces Démocratiques (Front of Democratic Forces; Morocco) Front des Forces Socialistes (Socialist Forces’ Front; Algeria) Front Islamique du Salut (Islamic Salvation Front; Algeria) Front pour la Justice et Développement or Parti al-Adala (Front for Justice and Development; Algeria) Front de Libération Nationale (National Liberation Front; Algeria) Front el-Moustakbal (Front for the Future; Algeria) Front National Algérien (Algerian National Front) Front National Démocratique (National Democratic Front; Algeria) Front National des Indépendants pour la Concorde (National Front of Independents for Understanding; Algeria) Front National pour la Justice Sociale (National Front for Social Justice; Algeria) first past the post Group of eight (informal electoral alliance not to be confused with the international wealthy government forum) Groupe d’Études et d’Action Socialiste en Tunisie (Group for Socialist Studies and Action in Tunisia) Harakat al-Mûjtama’a al-Silm or Mouvement de la Société Islamique (Islamic Society Movement; Algeria) Hizb el-Fedjr el-Jadid or Parti de la Nouvelle Aube (Party of the New Dawn; Algeria)

Appendix

ICD ID IFES ISIE JMC LADDH LI LTDH MCB MCL MD MDA MDI MDS MDS MDS ME MEN MIA MJD MNA MNDS MNE MNP MP MP

209

Parti de l’Initiative Citoyennes Pour le Développement (Citizens’ Initiative for Development; Morocco) Initiative Démocratique (Democratic Initiative; Tunisia) International Foundation for Election Systems l’Instance Supérieure Indépendante des Élections (Independent Board of Elections; Tunisia) Jazaïr Musulmane Contemporaine (Contemporary Muslim Algeria) Ligue Algérienne de Défense des Droits de l’Homme (Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights) l’Initiative or al-Moubadara (The Initiative; Tunisia) Ligue Tunisienne des Droits de l’Homme (Tunisian League for Human Rights) Mouvement Culturel Berbère (Berber Cultural Movement; Algeria) Mouvement des Citoyens Libres (Movement of Free Citizens; Algeria) Mouvement pour la Démocratie (Movement for Democracy; Morocco) Mouvement pour la Démocratie en Algérie (Movement for Democracy in Algeria) Mouvement des Démocrates Indépendants (Movement of Independent Democrats; Morocco) Mouvement Démocratique et Social (Democratic and Social Movement; Algeria) Mouvement Démocratique Social (Democratic Social Movement; Morocco) Mouvement Démocratique et Social (Democratic and Social Movement; Tunisia) Mouvement el-Infitah (Movement for Openness; Algeria) Mouvement de l’Entente Nationale (Movement of National Accord; Algeria) Mouvement Islamique d’Algérie (Algerian Islamic Movement) Mouvement pour la Jeunesse et la Démocratie (Movement for Youth and Democracy; Algeria) Mouvement National Algérien (Algerian National Movement) Mouvement National Démocratique et Social (National Democratic and Social Movement; Morocco) Mouvement National de l’Espérance (National Hope Movement; Algeria) Mouvement National Populaire (National Popular Movement; Morocco) Mouvement du Peuple (People’s Movement; Tunisia) Mouvement Populaire (Popular Movement; Morocco) (the contemporary party, which was legalized in 1958)

210 MPA MPD MPDC MPo MPU MPUP MRI MRJS MRN MRP MSDL MSP MTI MTLD MUP MUP I MUP II MUR NDI OADP OS OST PA PAA

Appendix

Mouvement Populaire Algérien (Algerian Popular Movement) Mouvement des Patriotes Démocrates (Movement of Patriotic Democrats; Tunisia) Mouvement Populaire Démocratique et Constitutionnel (Democratic and Constitutional Popular Movement; Morocco) Mouvement Populaire (Popular Movement; Morocco) (elOuezzani’s party) Mouvance Populaire Unifié (Unified Popular Movements; Morocco) Mouvement du Peuple Unioniste et Progressiste (Movement of the Unionist and Progressive People; Tunisia) Harakat an-Nahda al-Islamiyya or Mouvement de la Renaissance Islamique (Islamic Revival Movement; Algeria) Parti de l’Équité et de l’Egalité (Party of Equity and Equality; Tunisia) Mouvement el-Islah or Mouvement pour la Réforme Nationale (Movement for National Reform; Algeria) Mouvement Républicain Populaire (Popular Republican Movement) Mouvement Démocratique, Social et Laïque (Democratic, Social, and Secular Movement; Algeria) Mouvement de la Société pour la Paix (Movement of Society for Peace; Algeria) Mouvement de la Tendance Islamique or Ennahda (Islamic Tendency Movement; Tunisia) Mouvement pour le Triomphe des Libertés Démocratiques (Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties; Algeria) Mouvement d’Unité Populaire (Popular Unity Movement; Tunisia) Mouvement d’Unité Populaire I (Popular Unity Movement I; Tunisia) Mouvement d’Unité Populaire II (Popular Unity Movement II; Tunisia) Harakat al-Tawhid wa al-Islah (Movement for Unity and Reform; Morocco) National Democratic Institute Organisation de l’Action Démocratique et Populaire (Organization of Democratic and Popular Action; Morocco) Organisation Spéciale (Special Organization; Algeria) Organisation Socialiste des Travailleurs (Organization of Socialist Workers; Algeria) Parti de l’Action (Action Party; Morocco) Parti al-Ahd (Covenant Party; Morocco)

Appendix

PAC PAD PADS PAGS PAI PAM PCA PCF PCM PCOT PCT PDC PDI PDM PDN PDP PED PED PEDD PFC PGSU PGV PI PJ PJD PK PLD PLI

211

Al-Badil al-Hadari (Civilizational Alternative) Parti al-Ahd Addimocrati (Democratic Covenant Party; Morocco) Parti de l’Avant Garde Démocratique Socialiste (Party of the Democratic Socialist Avant-Garde; Morocco) Parti de l’Avant Garde Socialiste (Party of the Socialist AvantGarde; Algeria) Attachdid wa-l-Insaf (Party of Renewal and Equity; Algeria) Parti Authenticité et Modernité (Party of Authenticity and Modernity; Morocco) Parti Communiste Algérien (Algerian Communist Party) Parti Communiste Français (French Communist Party) Parti Communiste Marocain (Moroccan Communist Party) Parti Communiste des Ouvriers de Tunisie (Workers’ Communist Party of Tunisia) Parti Communiste Tunisien (Tunisian Communist Party) Parti Démocratique Constitutionnel (Democratic Constitutional Party; Morocco) Parti Démocratique de l’Indépendance (Democratic Party of Independence; Morocco) Pole Démocratique Moderniste (Modernist Democratic Pole; Tunisia) Parti Démocrate National (Democratic National Party; Morocco) Parti Démocrate Progressiste (Progressive Democratic Party; Tunisia) Parti Ennour el-Jazaïri or Parti Lueurs d’Algérie (Party of Algerian Lights) Parti de l’Environnement et du Développement (Environment and Development Party; Morocco) Parti de l’Environnement et du Développement Durable (Environment and Sustainable Development Party; Morocco) Parti des Forces Citoyennes (Citizens Forces Party; Morocco) Parti de la Gauche Socialiste Unifié (United Socialist Left Party; Morocco) Parti de Gauche Verte (Green Left Party; Morocco) Parti Istiqlal (Independence Party; Morocco) Parti des Jeunes (Youth Party; Algeria) Parti de la Justice et du Développement (Party of Justice and Development; Morocco) Parti el-Karama or Dignité (Dignity Party; Algeria) Parti pour la Laïcité et la Démocratie (Party for Laity and Democracy; Algeria) Parti de la Libération Islamique (Party of Islamic Liberation; Tunisia)

212 PLJ PLJS PLM PLP PLS PML PNCU PND PNSD PNSD PO PP

PPA PPS PR PRA PRD PRE PRL PRN PRP PRS PRV PS PSD PSD

Appendix

Parti de la Liberté et de la Justice (Party of Liberty and Justice; Algeria) Parti de la Liberté et de la Justice Sociale (Party of Liberty and Social Justice; Morocco) Parti Libéral Maghrebin (Liberal Maghrebi Party) Parti de la Lutte Progressiste or PNidhal (Party of the Progressive Struggle; Tunisia) Parti de la Libération et du Socialisme (Party of Liberation and Socialism; Morocco) Parti Marocain Libéral (Moroccan Liberal Party) Parti de la Nation Culturel et Unioniste (Party of the Cultural and Unionist Nation; Tunisia) Parti National Démocrate (National Democratic Party; Morocco) Parti National pour la Solidarité et le Développement (National Party for Solidarity and Development; Algeria) Parti National pour la Solidarité et le Développement (National Party for Solidarity and Development; Tunisia) Parti de la Oumma (Umma Party; Morocco) Pétition Populaire pour la Liberté, la Justice et le Développement or al-Aridha (Popular Petition for Freedom, Justice, and Development; Tunisia) Parti du Peuple Algérien (Algerian People’s Party) Parti du Progrès et du Socialisme (Party of Progress and Socialism; Morocco) proportional representation Parti du Renouveau Algérien (Algerian Renewal Party) Parti de la Réforme et du Développement (Reform and Development Party; Morocco) Parti du Renouveau et de l’Equité (Party of Renewal and Equity; Morocco) Parti Républicain de la Liberté (Republican Party of Liberty; Algeria) Partido de la Reforma Nacional (Party of National Reform; Morocco) Parti Républicain Progressiste (Republican Progressive Party; Algeria) Parti de la Révolution Socialiste (Party of the Socialist Revolution; Algeria) Parti de la Renaissance et de la Vertu (Party of Renaissance and Virtue; Morocco) Parti Socialiste (Socialist Party; Morocco) Parti Socialiste Démocratique (Social Democratic Party; Morocco) Parti Socialiste Destourien (Destourian Socialist Party; Tunisia)

Appendix

PSDe PSDL PSG PSL PSL PSP PST PSU PT PT PUD PUM PUNS PUP PUSN PVD PVP RA RCD RCD RND RNI RPF RPN RPR RSP SNI

213

Parti de la Société Démocratique (Party of the Democratic Society; Morocco) Parti Social Démocratique Libéral (Social Democratic Liberal Party; Tunisia) Parti Socialiste de Gauche (Socialist Leftist Party; Tunisia) Parti Social Libéral (Social Liberal Party; Algeria) Parti Social Libéral (Social Liberal Party; Tunisia) Parti Social pour le Progrès (Social Party for Progress; Tunisia) Parti Socialiste des Travailleurs (Socialist Workers’ Party; Algeria) Parti Socialiste Unifié (Unified Socialist Party; Morocco) Parti des Travailleurs (Workers’ Party; Algeria) Parti Travailliste (Labor Party; Morocco) Parti de l’Unité et de la Démocratie (Party of Unity and Democracy; Morocco) Partido de la Unidad Marroquí (Party of Moroccan Unity; Morocco) Partido de la Unión Nacional Saharaoui (Party of National Saharan Unity; Morocco) Parti de l’Unité Populaire (Party of Popular Unity; Tunisia) Parti de l’Union et de la Solidarité Nationale (Party of Unity and National Solidarity; Morocco) Annahj Addimocrati (Democratic Path Party; Morocco) Parti des Verts pour le Progrès (Green Party for Progress; Tunisia) Rassemblement Algérien (Algerian Rally) Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique (Democratic Constitutional Rally; Tunisia) Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Démocratie (Rally for Culture and Democracy; Algeria) Rassemblement National Démocratique (National Democratic Rally; Algeria) Rassemblement National des Indépendants (National Rally of Independents; Morocco) Rassemblement du Peuple Français (Rally of the French People; Algeria) Rassemblement Patriotique National (National Patriotic Rally; Algeria) Rassemblement Patriotique Républicain (Republican Patriotic Rally; Algeria) Rassemblement Socialiste Progressiste (Progressive Socialist Rally; Tunisia) Société Nationale d’Investissement (National Society for Investment; Morocco)

214 TAJ UA UC UD UDL UDMA UDR UDRS UDU UFDS UGDT UGET UGSCM UGTA UGTM UGTT UMD UMT UNEM UNFP UPL USFP

Appendix

Tadjamou Amel al Djazaïr or Rassemblement de l’Espoir de l’Algérie (Rally of Algeria’s Hope) Union Algérienne (Algerian Union) Union Constitutionnelle (Constitutional Union; Morocco) Union Démocratique (Democratic Union; Morocco) Union pour la Démocratie et les Libertés (Union for Democracy and Liberties; Algeria) Union Démocratique du Manifeste Algérien (Democratic Union of the Algerian Manifesto) Union pour la Démocratie et la République (Union for Democracy and the Republic; Algeria) Union pour la Défense de la Révolution Socialiste (Union for the Defense of the Socialist Revolution; Algeria) Union Démocratique Unioniste (Unionist Democratic Union; Tunisia) Union des Forces Démocratiques et Sociales (Union of Democratic and Social Forces; Algeria) Union Générale Démocratique des Travailleurs (General Democratic Union of Labor; Morocco) Union Générale des Étudiants de Tunisie (General Union of Tunisian Students) Union Général des Syndicats Confédérés du Maroc (General Union of Moroccan Confederated Syndicates) Union Générale des Travailleurs Algériens (General Union of Algerian Workers) Union Générale des Travailleurs du Maroc (General Union of Moroccan Workers) Union Générale des Travailleurs Tunisiens (General Union of Tunisian Workers) Union Marocaine pour la Démocratie (Moroccan Union for Democracy) Union Marocaine du Travail (Moroccan Labor Union) Union Nationale des Étudiants Marocains (National Union of Moroccan Students) Union Nationale des Forces Populaires (National Union of Popular Forces; Morocco) Union Patriotique Libre (Free Patriotic Union; Tunisia) Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires (Socialist Union of Popular Forces; Morocco)

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Index

Abstention, 41–42, 58, 67, 76–77, 83, 90–92, 138, 186–187. See also Turnout Accountability, 64, 186 Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP), 72, 131, 172, 207 Adaptation, 18, 23, 37, 52–53, 93, 100, 102, 117, 172, 181, 184 Al-Adl wal-Ihsan, 60, 65, 78, 80, 219 Afek Tounes (AT), 95, 116–117, 124, 131, 199, 207, 220 Age, ix, 1, 6, 18, 32, 38–42, 52, 58, 83, 89–90, 115, 130, 135–137, 165, 194 Ahd 54 (AHD 54), 203, 205, 207 Ahmed, Hocine Aït, 144–145, 147–148, 164, 174, 201, 204 Alliance, presidential, 156, 161–162, 166 Alliance de l’Algérie Verte (AAV), 156, 162–164, 166, 168, 203, 207 Alliance des Libertés (ADL), 46, 59–60, 193–194, 207 Alliance Nationale Républicaine (ANR), 164, 174, 203, 207 Alternance, 43, 52, 57, 71, 73 Amazigh, 65–66, 80 Ambition, 78, 117, 153 Amis du Manifeste et de la Liberté (AML), 143, 155, 207 Annahj Addimocrati (PVD), 46, 69, 76, 80–81, 213 Années de plomb, 57, 74, 80

Antisystemic, 43 Apathy, 32, 178, 186. See also Depoliticization Arab world, 1–2, 4, 6–10, 16–19, 22, 33–34, 123, 163, 168, 171 Al-Aridha (PP). See Pétition Populaire pour la Liberté, la Justice et le Développement Armée de Libération Marocaine (ALM), 48, 207 Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN), 156, 207 Army, 41, 56, 85, 87, 104, 111–114, 122, 126–128, 133, 137, 139–140, 142, 144, 150–154, 156, 164, 169–176, 179–180, 182, 187–188, 204, 207. See also Military Assembly, 2, 47, 130–131, 134, 144, 153, 176, 201–203 Asia, 22 Association Marocaine des droits Humains (AMDH), 80, 207 Authoritarian regimes, 1, 2, 4, 6–7, 11, 83, 123–125, 164, 173, 177; competitive, 33; electoral. 33. See also Nondemocratic regimes; Liberalized autocracies Autocracies, liberalized, 19, 33. See also Authoritarian regimes; Nondemocratic regimes

235

236

Index

Belhadj, Ali, 145, 155, 167–168, 175 Belaïd, Chokri, 189 Ben Ali, Zine El Abidine, 2, 6, 63, 85, 88, 90, 92, 96–97, 104, 106, 108–109, 111–113, 116–118, 127, 130, 182, 185, 200; fall of, 65, 93, 99, 103, 105, 114–115, 120, 128, 186 Benbitour, Ahmed, 170–171, 175–176 Benflis, Ali, 170–171, 175, 204–205 Benjedid, Chadli, 139–140, 147, 155 Benkirane, Abdelilah, 49, 71, 73, 78, 81–82 van Biezen, Ingrid, 19, 22–23, 27, 34, 38, 177 Blackmail potential, 88, 93, 106, 161 Boudiaf, Mohamed, 140–141, 144, 156, 201 Bouazizi, Mohamed, 6, 112–113 Boumédiène, Houari, 169 Bouteflika, Abdelaziz, 6, 152, 156–157, 160–161, 164–165, 168–175, 180, 182, 187–188, 204–205 Bouteflika, Saïd, 170–171, 175 Boycott, 21, 32, 33, 38; in Algeria, 135–139, 131, 148, 150, 154, 163, 166–167, 174–175, 204; in Morocco, 40, 42, 44, 48, 57–58, 69, 76, 81, 83, 191; in Tunisia, 88, 90–92, 106–107 Breakdown, of democracy, 22, 30, 129 Cabinet, in Algeria, 151–152, 157, 164–165, 171–172, 174–175, 179, 182; in Morocco, 48, 50–53, 55, 57, 60, 68, 70, 73–74, 78, 82; in Tunisia, 3, 96, 108–109, 115–116, 120–127, 130–131, 190 Carothers, Thomas, xii, 5, 22 Change: regime, 4–5, 78–79, 111, 113, 168, 188; party, 19, 23, 27, 34, 51, 56, 73–74, 101, 149, 166, 185; political, 2, 4–5, 65, 78, 116, 157, 165, 167, 188 Chebbi, Néjib, 99, 107–108, 118, 121, 128, 130 Civil liberties, 2, 66, 129, 158 Civil society, 4–5, 7, 57, 85, 129–130, 137, 144, 154, 158, 173–174. See also Interest groups; Social movements Clandestine, 6, 44, 49, 59, 90, 94, 96, 98–99, 101, 105, 107–109, 113, 115, 123, 142–145, 185 Classification, of political parties, 23–26; of party systems, 39, 86, 134

Cleavage, 6, 73 Coalition, 27–28; in Algeria, 155, 161, 164–165, 179–181; in Morocco, 51–52, 69–71, 73–75, 81–82; in Tunisia, 88, 121, 125–126, 128, 130–131, 185, 189 Cold War, 7, 19 Colonialism, 10, 39, 134 Comite d’Action Marocaine (CAM), 45–46, 59, 207 Comité de Liaison des Travailleurs Algériens (CLTA), 148, 207 Comité National de Soutien au Mouvement du 20 Février (CNAM), 207 Comité National pour les Libertés en Tunisie (CNLT), 208 Comité Révolutionnaire pour le Unité et l’Action (CRUA), 144, 208 Comparative, 7–9, 12–13, 22, 28 Competition, ix, 20, 26, 31, 178–179; in Algeria, 134, 139, 146; in Morocco, 37–39, 54; in Tunisia, 86–87, 89, 91, 106. See also Contestation Conceptual stretching, 22, 27, 33–34 Confidence, 124, 137, 176. See also Trust Congrès National Ittihadi (CNI), 46, 69, 193–194, 208 Congrès pour la République (CPR), 95, 98–99, 107, 109, 116, 119–122, 124, 126, 128, 130, 186, 199, 208 Consolidation, democratic, 4, 22, 127 Constitution, Algerian, 138–139, 141, 153, 155, 160, 167–169, 173–175, 182; Moroccan, 51, 55, 60, 64, 6–70, 72, 75–76, 78–79, 81, 180, 181; Tunisian, 114, 120, 122–123, 125, 130–131, 188 Contestation, 136, 146, 153, 155, 161. See also Competition Control, 2, 6, 19, 43, 48, 50, 51, 56, 58, 87, 98, 103–104, 156, 159, 170, 182 Coordination Nationale pour le Changement et la Démocratie (CNCD) Co-optation, 4, 6, 13; in Algeria, 133, 138, 140, 151, 153–156, 164; in Morocco, 49–51, 77, 79; in Tunisia, 104, 111 Corruption, 4, 56, 64, 75, 79 Crisis, economic, 4, 12, 159 Cyberspace, 2, 65, 113. See also Internet

Index

Dealignment, 18, 26, 41, 178 Democracies, advanced industrial, 5, 18–19, 178 Democratic regimes, versus nondemocratic, 19–21; and political parties, 19; and pluralism, 19; and competitive elections, 19–20 Demonstrations, 2–4; in Algeria, 140, 157–160, 172–173; in Morocco, 63, 66–67, 75, 79–81; in Tunisia, 113. See also Protests Depoliticization, 180. See also Apathy Dissatisfaction, voter, 41, 61, 80, 90, 92, 186, 188 Djaballah, Abdallah, 146, 155, 204, 205 Duverger, Maurice, 23–24, 34 Effective number of parties, 38–39, 76–77, 86, 88, 115, 134–135, 165–166, 179 Egypt, 1, 7, 8, 13, 63–64, 83, 100, 162, 189. See also Hosni Mubarak 18 Octobre Collectif, 9, 130 Elections, competitive, 19–20, 24, 32; in Algeria, 140; in Morocco, 58; in Tunisia, 87, 91, 114, 125, 185–186; municipal, 41, 102, 140, 146, 154, 167–168; non-free, 16, 178 Electoral engineering, 135, 140, 178, 190. See also Fraud; Manipulation; Votebuying Electorate, 17, 25–26, 178, 184–188; in Algeria, 135, 137–140, 149–151, 153–154, 165, 167, 169, 171; in Morocco, 41, 52, 54, 57–58, 67, 70–71, 74, 81–82, 181; in Tunisia, 85–86, 89, 91–93, 97, 101–102, 105, 114–115, 117–121, 127, 129 Elite, political, 1, 4–7, 13, 22, 24–25, 34; in Algeria, 145, 156, 169, 171–173, 175; in Morocco, 47, 77–78; in Tunisia, 106, 112, 117 Emergency rule, 52, 60, 140, 159–160, 181 Ennahda, 3, 72, 95, 98–100, 107–109, 115–116, 119–122, 124, 126, 128–131, 168, 186, 188–189, 199, 210. See also Mouvement de la Tendance Islamique Environment, 12, 23, 25–26, 30, 34, 37, 51–53, 56, 74, 90, 102, 105, 117, 120, 149, 152, 184–186

237

Eradicateurs, 170, 175 Essebsi, Béji Caïd, 114, 117 Ettakol. See Forum Démocratique pour le Travail et les Libertés Étoile Nord-Africaine (ENA), 142–143, 208 Europe, 6, 15, 30, 161; Central, Eastern, and Southern, 2, 15, 18, 22, 27, 34; postcommunist, 5; Western, 15, 18, 23–27, 34, 38, 41, 178 European Union (EU), 163, 174 Facebook, 2, 65, 113 Faction, 47, 80, 96, 99, 108–109, 140, 153. See also Wing el-Fassi, Abbas, 51, 63, 70 el-Fassi, Allal, 47, 59 Fidélité a la Démocratie (FD), 46, 208 Fission(s), 45, 49, 52, 78, 96–97, 105, 118, 147, 183 Forum Démocratique pour le Travail et les Libertés (FDTL), 95, 107, 116, 118–119, 121, 124, 128, 130, 199, 208 Fragmentation, 17. See also Party system France, 18, 83, 93–94, 142, 163. See also French Fraud, 44, 59, 76, 162–163, 178, 190. See also Electoral engineering; Manipulation; Vote-buying Freezing, 83, 189 French, 10, 13, 47, 59, 80, 100–101, 108, 134, 142, 144, 146, 153, 155. See also France Front de Défense des Institutions Constitutionnelles (FDIC), 40, 43, 46, 48–49, 51, 59–60, 191, 208 Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), 133–148, 151–156, 161–171, 173–176, 179, 182–183, 201–205, 208 Front des Forces Démocratiques (FFD), 46, 60, 192–195, 208 Front des Forces Socialistes (FFS), 137, 139, 141–145, 147–149, 153–154, 156, 158, 162–163, 165–166, 168, 174–175, 303–304, 208 Front du Changement (FC), 143, 162, 174, 203, 208 Front el-Moustakbal (FM), 143, 203, 208 Front Islamique du Salut (FIS), 100, 137, 140–141, 143–147, 151, 154–156, 167–168, 171–172, 174–175, 202, 204, 208

238

Index

Front National Algérien (FNA), 143, 162, 174, 176, 203, 205, 208 Front National Démocratique (FND), 203, 208 Front National des Indépendants pour la Concorde (FNIC), 203, 208 Front National pour la Justice Sociale (FNJS), 143, 203, 208 Front pour la Justice et Développement (FJD), 143, 155, 162, 174, 203, 208 Functions, 15, 17–18, 21–22, 33, 104–106, 127, 153; procedural, 12, 17, 105, 127; representative, 17–18, 55, 57, 93, 105, 127, 129, 178 Fusion(s), 45, 50, 183 Ghannouchi, Rachid, 100, 109, 130 Ghoul, Amar, 170–172 Gray zone, 5, 22 Groupe d’Études et d’Action Socialiste en Tunisie (GEAST), 98, 208 Group of eight (G8), 71, 75, 82, 208 Hadj, Messali, 142, 155 Hamrouche, Mouloud, 170–171, 204 Harakat an-Nahda al-Islamiyya. See Mouvement de la Renaissance Islamique Harakat al-Tawhid wa al-Islah (MUR), 50, 210 Hard-liners, ix, 5–6, 112, 170 Hassan II, 48–49, 60, 80, 180 el-Himma, Fouad Ali, 50–51, 63, 70, 81 Human rights, 66, 76, 80, 83, 99, 119, 158 Identity, 48, 66 Ideology, 58, 102, 145 Independence, 2, 7, 32, 178, 183, 187; in Algeria, 133–138, 140–145, 147, 149, 151, 153, 155–156, 169, 175, 178, 183, 187; in Morocco, 38, 40, 41, 43–45, 47–49, 51–52, 54–55, 57, 60, 65, 67, 71, 75–76, 78, 185; in Tunisia, 38, 40–41, 43–45, 47–49, 51–52, 54–55, 57, 60, 65, 67, 71, 75–76, 78 Inefficiency, 4, 56, 68, 127 Initiative or al-Moubadara (LI), 95, 116–117, 199, 209 Instance Supérieure Indépendante des Élections (ISIE), 130, 209

Interest groups, 18. See also Civil Society; Social Movements Interests, 17–18, 20–21, 32, 105, 152 Internet, 2, 4. See also Cyberspace Islamist(s), in Algeria, 137, 140, 142, 145–147, 149–151, 154–156, 162, 164, 166, 171–172; in Morocco, 44, 49, 53, 60, 63, 69–72, 74, 79, 181, 189; in Tunisia, 3, 94–95, 98–99, 108, 120–128, 130–131, 188–189; Winter, 83, 188–189 Ben Jaafar, Mustapha, 119, 131 al-Jazeera, 113, 162–163, 168 Jamâ’a al-Islamiyya, 49, 95, 99, 108, 146 Jebali, Hamadi, 121, 125, 130–131, 190 Judiciary, 66, 79, 104, 123 Kabylia, 3, 12, 141, 149, 158, 167 Khalfallah, Mohamed Ali, 109, 117 el-Khatib, Abdelkrim, 48–49, 59 Kirchheimer, Otto, 23, 25–26, 28 Kutla, 59, 71, 74, 82 Lamari, Mohamed, 170–171, 176 Latin America, 22, 41, 58 Leadership, 19, 34, 189; charismatic, 41, 118–120, 127, 142, 153, 175; in Algiera, 140, 144–146, 148, 162, 166–167, 173; in Morocco, 47, 52, 59–60, 77; in Tunisia, 87, 94, 96, 98–99, 102, 105, 108, 113, 116, 117, 128, 130–131 Legalization, 48–49, 53, 60, 68, 94–95, 118–119, 155 Legislature, 21, 32, 100, 118, 121, 124–126, 161, 166 Legitimacy, historical, 173; system, 32, 89, 90, 140, 186 Libya, 1, 13, 83, 87 Ligue Algérienne de Défense des Droits de l’Homme (LADDH), 144, 209 Ligue Tunisienne des Droits de l’Homme (LTDH), 99, 209 Madani, Abassi, 145, 175 Mainwaring, Scott, 31–32, 34, 39, 58 Mair, Peter, 17–18, 23, 26, 33, 54, 60, 105 Makhzen, 43–49, 51–54, 57–61, 63, 69–75, 79, 81–82, 142, 182, 189; defined, 58n11

Index

Manipulation, electoral, 21, 34, 43–44, 59, 140, 156, 162–163. See also Fraud; Electoral engineering; Votebuying Marzouki, Moncef, 99, 108–109, 119, 121, 130, 188–190 Mauritania, 8 Media, 18, 21, 70–71, 83, 113, 164–165 Methods, 111 Military, 139–141, 144, 170–171, 173, 188. See also Army Minimalist definition, of political parties, 15–16, 30, 33, 178 Mobilization, 17–19, 92, 101, 117, 151–152, 178, 181 Moderates, 5, 6, 13, 111, 176; in Algeria, 152, 168; in Morocco, 78; in Tunisia, 112 Mohammed V, 47 Mohammed VI, 51, 55, 60, 63–66, 72, 77, 79, 82, 180–181 Monarchy, executive, 37, 41, 45, 50, 53, 55–57, 60–61, 64–65, 68–670, 76–79, 180–181, 184 Moudawana, 55, 60 Mouvement Culturel Berbère (MCB), 148, 209 Mouvement de la Société Islamique (Hamas), 143, 146, 155, 203, 208 Mouvement de l’Entente Nationale (MEN), 203, 209 Mouvement Démocratique Social (MDS), in Algeria, 143, 146, 203, 209; in Morocco, 46, 60, 192–195, 209; in Tunisia, 87–91, 95–97, 100–103, 105–109, 117–119, 128, 198–199, 209 Mouvement de la Renaissance Islamique (MRI), 142–147, 149–150, 155–156, 162, 166, 174, 203, 210 Mouvement de la Société pour la Paix (MSP), 135–136, 142–143, 145–147, 150–152, 154–156, 161–162, 166–167, 171–176, 203–204, 210 Mouvement de la Tendance Islamique (MTI), 95, 99, 210. See also Ennahda Mouvement des Citoyens Libres (MCL), 143, 203, 209 Mouvement des Démocrates Indépendants (MDI), 46, 209 Mouvement des Patriotes Démocrates (MPD), 95, 199, 209

239

Mouvement d’Unité Populaire (MUP), 95–96, 210; MUP I, 95–96, 210; MUP II, 87, 95–96, 106, 210 Mouvement du Peuple Unioniste et Progressiste (MPUP), 199, 210 Mouvement du 20 février, 3, 63–70, 75, 77–78, 80–81 Mouvement el-Infitah (ME), 174, 203, 209 Mouvement el-Islah (MRN), 136, 142–143, 145–146, 149–150, 153, 155, 162, 166, 203–205, 210 Mouvement Islamique d’Algérie (MIA), 145, 209 Mouvement National Algérien (MNA), 143, 155, 209 Mouvement National de l’Espérance (MNE), 203, 209 Mouvement National Populaire (MNP), 46, 50, 60, 192–193, 209 Mouvement Populaire (MP), 38, 40, 45–49, 51–52, 59–60, 70, 71, 73–74, 81–82, 191–195, 209; of el-Ouezzani, 59 Mouvement Populaire Algérien (MPA), 143, 164, 172, 203, 210 Mouvement Populaire Démocratique et Constitutionnel (MPDC), 40, 46, 49–50, 59–60, 191–192, 210 Mouvement pour la Démocratie (MD), 46, 209 Mouvement pour la Démocratie en Algérie (MDA), 144, 174, 209 Mouvement pour la Jeunesse et la Démocratie (MJD), 203, 209 Mouvement pour la Réforme Nationale (MRN). See Mouvement el-Islah Mouvement pour le Triomphe des Libertés Démocratiques (MTLD), 142–144, 155, 210 Mubarak, Hosni, 63, 65. See also Egypt Muslim Brotherhood, 72, 82, 100 Nahnah, Mahfoud, 146–147, 155, 204 Negotiations, 49, 69, 112, 122, 125–126, 144, 168 Neo-institutionalism, 23 Nondemocratic regimes, 5, 7, 15, 19–20, 22–23, 32, 86, 91, 103, 136. See also Authoritarian regimes North America, 6, 18, 30, 101

240

Index

Objective(s), 2–3, 9–10, 12, 20–21, 27–28, 30, 34, 45, 50, 52, 54, 65, 71, 78, 94, 124, 128, 140, 146–147, 152, 155, 157–158, 177, 182, 184–185, 193–194 Octobre noir, 139 Office-seeking, 26, 28, 29, 184–185; in Algeria, 149–151, 156, 166–167; in Morocco, 45, 51–54, 60, 69, 74–75; in Tunisia, 102–103, 117, 128, 186 Opening, tentative political, 86, 88, 92, 96, 100–102 Opposition: legal, 85, 87, 94, 97, 105–106, 113, 118, 167; genuine, 6, 50, 64, 85, 98, 105, 118–119, 139, 167 Organisation de l’Action Démocratique et Populaire (OADP), 46, 192, 210 Organisation Socialiste des Travailleurs (OST), 148, 210 Organisation Spéciale (OS), 144, 210 Organization, party, 23–26, 28, 33 Orientation, 3, 24, 29–30, 37, 45, 51–52, 70, 93–94, 98, 101, 133, 154, 183, 185 Ouyahia, Ahmed, 164, 175–176 Pact(s), 5–6, 13, 47, 55, 57, 71, 104, 119, 147, 151–152, 155 Parliamentarism, 13, 123–126, 131, 174 Parti al-Ahd (PAA), 46, 60, 83, 193–194, 210 Parti al-Ahd Addimocrati (PAD), 46, 83, 195, 210 Parti Authenticité et Modernité (PAM), 45– 46, 50–51, 54, 56, 59–60, 63–64, 70– 71, 73–74, 76–77, 79, 81, 83, 195, 211 Participation, 8, 48, 50, 66–67, 71, 80–81, 144, 165 Parti Communiste Algérien (PCA), 135, 138–139, 143, 147, 211 Parti Communiste des Ouvriers de Tunisie (PCOT), 95, 98–99, 107, 199, 211 Parti Communiste Français (PCF), in Algeria, 143, 211; in Tunisia, 95, 97–98, 101, 211 Parti Communiste Marocain (PCM), 43, 46, 58–59, 211 Parti Communiste Tunisien (PCT), 87, 91, 95–96, 98, 100–103, 106, 108, 198, 211 Parti de l’Action (PA), 46, 191–192, 195, 210

Parti de la Gauche Socialiste Unifié (PGSU), 46, 193, 211 Parti de Gauche Verte (PGV), 46, 71, 76, 195, 211 Parti de la Justice et du Développement (PJD), 38, 40, 44–46, 49, 50, 53–54, 59–60, 68, 70–74, 79, 81–82, 100, 181, 189, 193–195, 211 Parti de la Libération et du Socialisme (PLS), 46, 58, 212 Parti de la Libération Islamique (PLI), 108, 211 Parti de la Liberté et de la Justice (PLJ), 143, 164, 174, 205, 211 Parti de la Liberté et de la Justice Sociale (PLJS), 195, 211 Parti de la Lutte Progressiste (PLP), 95, 199, 211 Parti de la Nation Culturel et Unioniste (PNCU), 199, 212 Parti de la Réforme et du Développement (PRD), 46, 193, 212 Parti de l’Avant Garde Démocratique Socialiste (PADS), 46, 59, 69, 76, 80, 143, 194, 210 Parti de la Nouvelle Aube (HFJ), 143, 174, 203, 208 Parti de l’Environnement et du Développement (PED), 46, 59–60, 83, 143, 193–194, 203, 211 Parti de l’Environnement et du Développement Durable (PEDD), 46, 83, 195, 211 Parti Démocratique de l’Indépendance (PDI), 40, 46, 59, 191–193, 211 Parti de l’Initiative Citoyenne Pour le Développement (ICD), 46, 60, 208 Parti de l’Unité Populaire (Parti de la Réforme et du Développement (PRD), 46, 193, 212 Parti de la Renaissance et de la Vertu (PRV), 46, 71, 194, 212 Parti Démocrate National (PDN), 46, 211 Parti Démocrate Progressiste (PDP), 89, 91, 95, 107, 109, 116, 118–119, 121, 124, 128, 130–131, 199, 211 Parti Démocratique Constitutionnel (PDC), 46, 59, 211 Parti de la Révolution Socialiste (PRS), 143, 212 Parti de l’Unité et de la Démocratie (PUD), 46, 77, 195, 213

Index

Parti de l’Unité Populaire (PUP), 85–89, 95–96, 98, 100–103, 106–107, 118, 198–200, 213 Parti des Jeunes (PJ), 143, 203, 211 Parti des Travailleurs (PT), 139, 142–144, 148, 150–153, 156, 168, 175, 205, 213 Parti des Verts pour le Progrès (PVP), 88, 95–97, 101–103, 118, 198–199 Parti du Peuple Algérien (PPA), 142–143, 155, 212 Parti du Progrès et du Socialisme (PPS), 46, 60, 71, 73–74, 80, 82, 191–195, 212 Parti du Renouveau Algérien (PRA), 143, 155, 203–204, 212 Parti du Renouveau et de l’Equité (PRE), 46, 194–195, 212 Parti el-Karama (PK), 143, 203, 211 Parti Forces Citoyennes (PFC), 46, 59, 193–194, 211 Parti Istiqlal (PI), 38, 40, 42–43, 45–49, 51–52, 58–60, 71, 73–74, 79, 81–82, 191–195, 211 Parti Libéral Maghrebin (PLM), 95, 199, 211 Parti Marocain Libéral (PML), 46, 193, 212 Parti National Démocrate (PND), 46, 49, 60, 192–194, 212 Parti National pour la Solidarité et le Développement (PNSD), in Algeria, 143, 203; Tunisia, 95, 199, 212 Parti Républicain Progressiste (PRP), 203, 212 Parti Social Démocratique Libéral (PSDL), 88, 95–97, 101–103, 107, 118, 199, 212 Parti Socialiste des Travailleurs (PST), 143, 213 Parti Socialiste Unifié (PSU), 46, 69, 76, 80–81, 194, 213 Parti Social Libéral (PSL), 89, 95, 97, 107, 198, 200, 203, 212 Parti Socialiste (PS), 46, 71, 194, 212 Parti Socialiste de Gauche (PSG), 95, 129, 212 Parti Socialiste Démocratique (PSD), 46, 60, 192–193, 213 Parti Socialiste Destourien (PSD), 87, 92, 94–97, 100–102, 107, 118, 197, 213 Parti Social pour le Progrès (PSP), 88, 95, 97, 100–102, 198, 213

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Parti Travailliste (PT), 46, 60, 71, 194–195, 203, 211 Party: administration, 142, 145, 147, 149, 155; Berber, 141–143, 147–149, 158, 164, 166, 172; cadre, 23–25, 93; cartel, 23, 25–26, 28–29, 34, 54–56, 60–61, 127, 184–185; catch-all, 23, 25–26, 28–29, 34, 75, 103, 109; externally created, 23–24, 45, 47, 98–99, 108, 120, 146, 152, 183; internally created, 24, 45, 105, 186; Islamist, 44, 53, 71, 79, 121, 142–143, 145–146, 151, 155, 166, 181, 188, 189; mass, 18, 24–25, 28–29, 34, 93, 108, 136; new politics, 28–29; personalistic, 12, 55, 96–97, 101, 103, 107, 119, 146, 149, 158, 175; regime, 68, 88, 90, 93–95, 97, 99–102, 104–105, 108–109, 112, 117–118, 142–144, 154, 160, 162, 178, 182; secular, 123, 142, 147–148; single, 16, 19, 29, 33, 87–87, 89, 91–92, 97, 106–107, 124, 128, 131, 134–135, 138, 153, 164, 188; traditionally dominant, 37, 39, 45, 51, 54, 56, 58, 64, 69, 76–78 Party system, one, 133–135; multiparty, 47, 106, 125, 131, 134, 140, 147, 149, 186; defined, 33n3, 57–58n3; development, 12, 23 Patronage, 2–3, 6, 12, 26, 28, 30, 184–185; in Algeria, 151, 154, 166, 173; in Morocco, 54, 56–57, 60–61, 64, 68–70, 75, 77, 181; in Tunisia, 97, 100–103, 106, 109, 111–112, 186 Pedersen index, 31, 35, 76–77, 115, 135, 175 Personalistic, 12, 55, 96–97, 101, 103, 107, 119, 146, 149, 158, 175 Pétition Populaire pour la Liberté, la Justice et le Développement (PP), 95, 108, 116, 119–120, 127–128, 130–131, 183, 199, 212 Petrodollars, 157, 172. See also Rentierism Pluralism, 6, 19–20, 38–39, 47, 58, 88, 100, 106, 125, 134–135, 144, 153–154, 164, 166, 179, 183 Pole Démocratique Moderniste (PDM), 117, 129, 199, 211 Policy-seeking, 26, 28–29, 183–184, 186; in Algeria, 149–151, 166; in Morocco,

242

Index

45, 52; in Tunisia, 100–102, 117, 183, 186 Political party, defined, 16 Power, balance of, 38, 133, 142, 150, 169; dynamics of, 1, 12, 21, 24, 37, 68, 85–86, 93, 122, 166, 168, 178–180, 185–187 Presidentialism, 11, 13, 123–126, 131, 174, 188 Program(s), party, 28, 70, 105, 112, 116, 127, 129–130. See also Ideology Protests, 1–4, 187–189; in Algeria, 154, 157–159, 167–168, 173, 175, 182; in Morocco, 43, 63–67, 69, 75, 78–80, 181, 195; in Tunisia, 112–114. See also Demonstrations Rabitat ad-Dawa, 146 Radi, Abdelouahed, 74, 80 Radicals, 5, 112, 175 Ramid, Mustapha, 78, 81, 83 Rassemblement Algérien (RA), 203, 213 Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique (RCD), 88–90, 93–97, 101–103, 105, 107–108, 111–112, 114–117, 179, 198–200, 213 Rassemblement National Démocratique (RND), 135–136, 142–145, 148, 150, 152–153, 156, 160–168, 174–176, 179, 182, 203–204, 213 Rassemblement National des Indépendants (RNI), 38, 40, 45–46, 49–51, 53, 59–60, 70–71, 73–75, 81–82, 192–195, 213 Rassemblement Patriotique National (RPN), 141, 213 Rassemblement Patriotique Républicain (RPR), 203, 213 Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Démocratie (RCD), 139, 141–143, 147–149, 153, 156, 158, 163–164, 166–167, 173, 175, 203–204, 213, 215 Rassemblement Socialiste Progressiste (RSP), 88, 95, 107–108, 118, 130, 213 Referendum, 67–69, 76, 122, 131 Reformers, 5–6, 13, 78, 111–112, 152, 168 Regression, 122–125, 131, 190 Relevant, parties, 3, 10, 12, 16–17, 24, 31, 179, 181, 183–186; in Algeria, 133, 135–138, 141–142, 145,

148, 151–152, 156, 159, 163, 166–168; in Morocco, 71, 76–77; in Tunisia, 85, 93, 98, 100, 102–103, 107–108, 116, 118, 125, 127, 129 Rentierism, 159, 173. See also Petrodollars Representation, 18, 20–21, 70, 73, 104, 129, 135, 153, 178–179, 181; proportional, 106, 131, 160 Repression, 6, 20, 47–48, 92, 98–100, 103–104, 108–109, 122, 167 Revolution, 5–6, 47, 85, 99, 112, 114, 122, 152, 172, 175 Rhetoric, 100, 131, 145, 154, 189 Rootedness, 31–32; in Ageria, 135–138, 142, 153, 156; in Morocco, 37–39, 41, 50, 52–53, 72, 77; in Tunisia, 86, 89, 97, 99 101, 105, 107, 112, 127. See also Societal links Sadi, Saïd, 148, 158–159, 167, 173, 175, 204–205 Salafist, 65, 72 Sartori, Giovanni, 16–17, 19, 33–34, 39, 57, 106 Scenario(s), 6, 22, 79, 82–83, 111, 123, 127, 173, 177, 186, 188; Algerian, 44 Secular, 3, 123, 142, 147–148 Sellal, Abdelmalek, 164–165, 172, 174–175 Sharia, 123, 130, 155 Social movements, 65, 80. See also Civil society; Interest groups Societal links, 57, 74, 96, 99, 102, 136–137. See also Rootedness Société Nationale d’Investissement (SNI), 79, 213 Soft-liners, 5–6 Stability, party system, 85–86; political, 30, 123, 128, 153 Stabilizing, 4 Status quo, 6, 57, 64, 67, 76, 97, 152, 163–164, 168, 170, 173, 177, 181, 188 Strategy, 23, 44, 47, 100, 102–103, 112, 117–118, 128, 133, 147, 149, 152–153, 172, 185–186 Strike(s), 87, 140, 171 Strøm, Kaare, 29–30 Structure, of the political system, 3–4, 151 Sub-Saharan Africa, 40, 58

Index

Suffrage, 20–21, 34, 59, 144 Supra-constitution, 60, 68 Survival, regime, 7, 20–21, 30, 57, 64, 87, 91, 104, 139, 152–153, 170, 173, 177 Tadjamou Amel al Djazaïr (TAJ), 164, 213 Theocracy, 79, 189, 190 Theory, 8–9, 22, 27–28 Touati, Moussa, 162, 205 Transition, democratic, 5, 15, 22, 112, 128, 159; pacted, 78, 112, 152, 168 Transitology, 5–6, 11 Trust, ix, 56, 109, 137, 154, 165, 180. See also Confidence Turkey, 7–8, 72, 131, 189 Turnout, 138, 160, 165. See also Abstention Twitter, 2, 113 Unemployment, 12, 75, 80, 113 Union Constitutionnelle (UC), 38, 40, 45–46, 49, 51, 53, 59–60, 71, 73–74, 81, 192–195, 213 Union Démocratique (UD), 46, 193, 213 Union Démocratique du Manifeste Algérien (UDMA), 143, 155, 214 Union Démocratique Unioniste (UDU), 89, 95–98, 100–103, 106–107, 118, 198–200, 214 Union des Forces Démocratiques et Sociales (UFDS), 143, 203, 214 Union Générale des Étudiants de Tunisie (UGET), 98, 214 Union Générale des Travailleurs Algériens (UGTA), 145, 214 Union Générale des Travailleurs Tunisiens (UGTT), 94, 99, 113, 128, 214 Union Marocaine pour la Démocratie (UMD), 46, 194, 214 Union Nationale des Étudiants Marocains (UNEM), 48, 214

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Union Nationale des Forces Populaires (UNFP), 40, 42–43, 46–48, 58–59, 191, 214 Union Patriotique Libre (UPL), 95, 130, 199, 214 Union pour la Défense de la Révolution Socialiste (UDRS), 148, 214 Union pour la Démocratie et les Libertés (UDL), 203, 213 Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires (USFP), 38, 40, 42, 45–46, 48–49, 52–54, 60, 68, 71, 74–75, 79–83, 191–195, 214 Union(s), 8, 48, 56, 94, 96–98, 106, 113, 137, 145, 153–154, 158, 170 Uprising, 6, 149 Veto, 123, 141 Volatility, electoral, 31, 32, 35, 179; in Algeria, 134–135, 175; in Morocco, 38–39, 41, 45, 50, 76–77; in Tunisia, 85–86, 115 Vote-buying, 43–44, 59, 76. See also Electoral engineering; Fraud; Manipulation Vote-seeking, 26, 28–29, 184–186; in Algeria, 149–151, 166; Morocco, 51–54, 57, 60, 74–75; in Tunisia, 100–103, 117–118, 127–128 War, civil, 12, 152, 156, 159, 169, 182 Wealth, 4, 6, 115 Wing, 47–48, 96, 109, 140, 144, 156, 169, 204. See also Faction Wolinetz, Steven, 23, 27–30, 54, 184 World Values Survey (WVS), 56, 61, 109, 137 Younsi, Djahid, 146, 205 Youssoufi, Abderrahmane, 48, 83 Youth(s), 2, 40, 63, 113, 145, 148, 158–159, 172, 195 Zéroual, Liamine, 141–142, 144, 204

About the Book

What are the prospects for democracy in North Africa in the wake of the Arab Spring? Addressing this question, Lise Storm provides a rich analysis of party politics in the region. Storm focuses on Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria, examining the key characteristics and political dynamics of each country’s party system as it has evolved over time. Her research sheds light not only on the origins, development, and functioning of these parties, but also on their contributions to the survival of authoritarianism, and their potential as vehicles for democratization. Lise Storm is senior lecturer in Middle East politics at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. She is author of Democratization in Morocco.

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