Tunisia’s National Dialogue Quartet Set a Powerful Example

The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award its annual peace prize to Tunisia’s National Dialogue Quartet is an occasion to celebrate what this extraordinary group of labour unions, business and civil society organisations accomplished. Today, it is easy to be complacent about the coalition government in Tunis, which is a direct result of the groundwork laid by the Quartet in 2013. One can lament the security, economic and political challenges that Tunisia still faces. However, the situation could have been far worse were it not for the role played by the Quartet.

Over the tumultuous summer of 2013, things were not looking good in Tunisia. The coalition “Troika” government – led by the Nahda, Ettakatol and Congress for the Republic (CPR) parties, formed after the 2011 elections – was fast losing popular support. The opposition, led by secular parties and elements of the former regime, derided the Troika government for being both ineffectual and ill-intentioned. Its members accused the government of harbouring an Islamist agenda and being excessively tolerant of radical groups, notably Ansar Sharia, believed to be behind the assassinations of leftist politicians Choukri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi in February and July 2013. (The Troika government declared Ansar Sharia a terrorist group in August 2013.) The regional tide was also changing: the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi in Egypt after mass protests, on 3 July 2013, provided a model that some in the opposition wanted to emulate. Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were pushing a “counter-revolutionary” agenda, hoping to stem the advance of Muslim Brotherhood-inspired groups across the region. The political atmosphere was highly polarised and toxic; the possibility of a violent confrontation all too real.

It was in this context that the National Dialogue Quartet was formed. It began as an initiative by the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT, Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail). As far back as 18 June 2012 (a year before the crisis), the national trade union federation had called for a national dialogue to defuse political tensions. On 30 July 2013, the UGTT reiterated its call, proposing that the Troika government be replaced by a caretaker government and that an agenda be set to finalise a new constitution. The federation was soon joined by three other civil society groups: the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA, Union tunisienne de l’industrie, du commerce et de l’artisanat), the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH, la Ligue tunisienne pour la défense des droits de l’homme), and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers (Ordre national des avocats de Tunisie). This Quartet formed the backbone of the National Dialogue, which was eventually joined by 21 political parties. The Dialogue, held between August 2013 and January 2014, consisted of talks with these various parties that were overseen by the Quartet. (Crisis Group will honour two key participants in the National Dialogue, President Béji Caïd Essebsi and Nahda party leader Rached Ghannouchi, at its 20th Anniversary Award Dinner in New York on 26 October.)

There are several reasons the National Dialogue succeeded, including strong popular and international pressure to avoid the Egyptian scenario. A key factor was that the Quartet had real support in Tunisian society. The UGTT, despite years of dictatorship, had managed to build a national network of over 400,000 members and today has the ability to call for massive general strikes that can paralyse the economy. While the UGTT represents labour, the UTICA represents capital, the influential and moneyed business elite. The human rights league and the lawyers’ syndicate are veterans of the opposition to the Ben Ali regime and played an important role in the 2011 revolution. Together, these four organisations had both moral clout and political brawn; they could mobilise public opinion and steer the national debate. The UGTT and UTICA, precisely because they are often at loggerheads on labour issues, made for a particularly compelling duo in jointly pushing an agenda of compromise.

Initially, the Quartet’s proposal was seen as part of the opposition’s strategy, because of its call for the dismissal of the Nahda-led government. However, the Quartet’s leadership in effect provided a vehicle for negotiation, neutralising the opposition’s hardliners who might have backed more radical options, such as an outright coup. From the start of the National Dialogue in August 2013 through January 2014, when the caretaker government took office, the Quartet channelled political energies towards a compromise. It often did so directly, leading the discussions between political parties. As one participant in the talks told us, UGTT Secretary-General Hocine Abassi “decided who spoke and imposed decisions…. He sometimes made participants from political parties remain in the room after the end of our sessions if no decision had been reached.”

Tunisia was fortunate to have civil-society leaders who recognised the gravity of the moment, and who were able to defuse the situation and avert radical scenarios. In a region where civil-society groups often face repression and are marginalised, the Tunisian example shows the value of having actors from outside formal politics play a role in moments of crisis. No one elected the National Dialogue Quartet, but they nonetheless represented something real: the desire of many Tunisians to resolve their differences in a peaceful and constructive way. At a time when NGOs are being shut down in Egypt and civil-society activists are threatened and even assassinated in Libya, there is a valuable lesson to be learned from this year’s Nobel Peace Prize-winners.