Doubts plague Tunisia two years after Ben Ali

Tunisians on Monday mark two years since the overthrow of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali amid a highly uncertain future beset by social and security tensions, a sluggish economy, and deadlock over a new constitution.
The hopes that accompanied the victorious first Arab Spring uprising have given way for many of its supporters to frustration at persistent poverty and hardship, despite Ben Ali leaving the country after 23 years in power.
“Contrary to what the government claims, the rate of unemployment has risen since the revolution and graduates represent more than a third of around one million job seekers,” said Salem Ayari of the union for jobless graduates.
“Political tensions, nepotism and corruption have exacerbated an already critical economic situation.”
A Western diplomat described the government, led by the moderate Islamist party Ennahda that triumphed in the 2011 parliamentary elections, as “running around in circles.”
Popular frustration was starkly illustrated on Dec. 17, when protesters heckled President Moncef Marzouki and pelted him with stones in Sidi Bouzid, the poor central town where the revolution erupted exactly two years earlier.
Strikes and protests have multiplied in the past year, often degenerating into violence, as in late November when around 300 people were hurt in running clashes between police and protesters in Siliana, a town southwest of Tunis.
This week, the southern border town of Ben Guerdane was rocked by violence, with protesters demanding investment and jobs torching a police station and customs office, and ransacking the premises of the ruling party. On Friday, Ennahda chief Rached Ghannouchi issued a stark warning.
“We do not want Tunisia to become like Somalia, where revolution turned into chaos,” he said.
The government remains determined to forge ahead with the anniversary festivities, however, hoisting flags along the capital’s streets and erecting tents to host cultural activities. Representatives of both Libya and Egypt, two other Arab Spring states, will also attend Monday’s ceremony.
A “social pact” is also due to be signed on the day by trade unions, business leaders and the authorities.
Defending its record, the government points to the revolution’s achievements such as freedom of expression and political pluralism, and a return to economic growth which went from negative in 2011 to 3.5 percent last year.
But beyond the generic social discontent and frequent confrontations between supporters of the government and its critics, the authorities are facing a separate, and more sinister threat, from the minority jihadist movement. Last September, suspected Islamists attacked the US embassy in Tunis and a neighboring American school in violence that left four people dead and dozens wounded.