Governance after Revolution: Tunisia and MENA in a Tested World, with Prime Minister Youssef Chahed

Thank you for the invitation. Thank you for the warm welcome and deeply honored to be with you here.

Yeah, I mean you start with this question that I might be fighting for changing this or finding another better description of the MENA region. So MENA is Middle East North Africa but of course there are huge differences between these countries today. You have the oil and non-oil countries and even within oil countries there are big differences between Libya and UAE or those countries. Both are old countries but you see it's not the same trajectory of development, it's not the same history. So of course there are a lot of common things between all these in this space: language, religion, a lot of similarities, but then also a lot of differences. And I think when we talk about MENA we should really specify what part of MENA are we talking about?

So the MENA region is a place historically speaking of conflicts, a long history of conflicts, turmoils, instability, political instability globally speaking. And we have right now an ongoing war in the region that is impacting, you see all the countries are being impacted, not only Iran but also all the other countries. So those are, and we had the war in Ukraine also that impacted the region before the COVID. But let me maybe talk more about the challenges that we know for the last 20 or 30 years. Of course many challenges, but for me as a former prime minister the most important one is the job creation. This is a region that is experiencing one of the highest unemployment rates among the youth, especially among educated. So if you look to Tunisia for example or Jordan or Morocco it is around 35 or 37% the level of unemployment within the youth category which is very high and it puts a huge pressure on governments because those are, in Tunisia at least, one of three persons looking for a job own a degree from university. So this puts a huge pressure on government and we experienced that in Tunisia after the revolution. If you look to the World Bank report, the region is experiencing by 2015 around 300 million people asking for jobs. And if you know that the public service is saturated so you need to really work in that to offer jobs for those people, 300 million persons by 2015. This is for me the most important challenge. And then to address this challenge, as I mentioned the public service is saturated, those economies are not well diversified, the resilience is low. Again, I'm speaking not about all MENA, it's different. I mean we can talk about those MENA countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia that are really progressing very fast and making huge achievements in terms of governance, leadership, etc. But then let's globally speaking, this will be a huge challenge because there is as I mentioned a low diversification economy, still low foreign direct investment in the region. A lot of obstacles to trade. But then of course huge opportunities also. So I think job creation is number one challenge. Also number two I will say reducing social disparities. And remember that the Arab Spring that started in Tunisia, it started when Mohamed Bouazizi the street vendor immolated himself. It was an act of desperate act against a feeling or perception of injustice because of social inequalities. And you will find those kind of inequalities in many Arab countries, in Tunisia between the inner area of the country and the coastal area of the country, in Egypt, etc. And I think by the way there are common roots that explain the Arab Spring. Those people were perceiving social inequalities. They were looking for better redistribution of the wealth, more social justice. I believe much more than democracy, maybe the elite were looking for democracy. In many countries in the MENA region you can find social divide that is very important to address. Beside that corruption is an important problem too, you need to fight corruption. Education, you need to improve the relation between the training and the job markets. There is as I mentioned people are educated, many of them, but they can't find a job. So vocational training, things like that, we need to address that. Brain drain also is very important in the region. In Tunisia, many or in North Africa going to Europe, to the Gulf countries or to the US looking for opportunities. So we invest a huge amount of money for these people to train them and at the end they leave the country. So those are let's say common challenges that we need to address quickly.

Yeah. When the Arab Spring started in Tunisia and as you mentioned it spread to other Arabic countries, Libya, Yemen, Syria, etc. Egypt. I think if you go back to that period and ask scholars or experts on political science, I think the majority thought that the experience will not succeed because Tunisia, you know, if you go to all those modernization theories, you have the economic buildup, etc. The revenue per capita in Tunisia at that time was less than $5,000. So if you consider that we need to have like an economic buildup before building the democracy maybe we will not succeed. But there was a huge enthusiasm for Tunisia, for the Tunisian case. Why? For many reasons. First, Tunisia has a long history of reformism. Including, you know, the Arab Spring happened and we saw all those political Islam movements in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Morocco, etc. But then thanks to this long history of reformism in Tunisia, started, you know, Tunisia is a very old country as you mentioned, old civilization. We developed a kind of moderate Islam, peaceful Islam that really played an important role in the trajectory post-revolution. And that's why maybe Tunisia, the experience succeeded to survive at least for 10 years. But there was an enthusiasm because also as I mentioned this long history of reformism created moderate Islam, gave a huge status for the women. The Tunisian women are among the most active in the Arab region with rights earlier. I mean even after the independence of course President Bourguiba who was the first president of Tunisia, independent country after in 1956, played a huge role in that. He was very visionary and someone who really looked forward and you can go back to the speeches of Bourguiba, is a very strong leader who really gave a secular anchorage to the country very early. And this played, those achievements or this base played a role in the post-revolution period. Give you a concrete example: after the revolution the first election, the Islamists in Tunisia won the election with 37% of the votes. If you go to Egypt the same period there was election after Hosni Mubarak was removed from power, the Islamists together won with 71%. So the 71% of the vote, the game is over as we say, there's no room for no alternative. In Tunisia, the 37% it created a room for an alternative, the possibility that the other camp, the secular, progressive, how we call them, democratic camp could, and this is exactly what happened in 2014 when we were able to win against the Islamists in a democratic election. But maybe if the Islamists won the election with like in Egypt maybe the experience could not survive or continue. So I think Tunisia also there was civil society that is independent, secular, compared also maybe to Egypt where the civil society was more close to the Islamist groups. So the fact that we have this civil society including unions like the UGTT or bar association played a huge role in the survival or at least those 10 years of democratic period in Tunisia.

Yeah, it's a very difficult question. At least in the case of Tunisia, I can speak about it as I mentioned. The institutional played a role. But then again for me the survival or the decline of any regime, any government depends more before everything on what I call the behavior of political actors. And what I mean political actors, it is prime minister, president, security forces, justice, union, media, NGOs. Those are the ones who decide if system survive or not. And this is what happened in Tunisia, right? So but then you need to have kind of institutional building to generate the Tunisian institutional building maybe was not generating a huge income but we have all those unions, civil society, women status, long history of reformism, moderate Islam, those played a huge role. And then many examples, for example in 2013 in Tunisia when there was, when the Islamist Sisi took power in Egypt, there was many calls in Tunisia from certain people. They asked the army to do the same. But the army decided to not interfere in the political game and this helped the experience to continue. So the behavior of the army at that time was very positive. It helped the experience to continue. Unions, which is the main labor union in Tunisia, has played an important role because after the revolution you don't have political parties, you know, so we have only the Islamists. Unions played a role, maybe they overpass their classical role but then pending to this political party to become stronger they did the opposition or the confrontation to make this balance and this give possibility or a room for alternative in 2014 election and this is what happened. So maybe I mean it's very specific to each country. We try to build but then also let me tell you that building a democracy after a revolution maybe it's much more difficult than the classical process where you develop your economy and then you go to democracy. Why? For two reasons. Number one is that you don't have a political person or political class because we are coming from a dictatorship regime that this regime will not keep any political class emerging, you know, and look what's happening in Syria for example, where is the Syrian political class because Bashar said no one was able to have political activities etc. So you find yourself with people that fight the dictator which is something difficult to do but then when you turn to run the country and to build a democracy and to run a ministry or government this is something else. This is what happened in Tunisia. The people who were confronting the dictator immediately they became governing the country and they didn't have many mistakes in the beginning. Second thing that make it much more difficult after a revolution is the understanding of the young generation. The Tunisian revolution was done. There was no political leadership. It was done by the youth. They went to the street. No political party participated in that. They went to the street and they removed the dictator. And when the young generation move things can move much quicker. Not only in this example, but I believe in any example. This young generation that went to the street, their goal was to repair an injustice, social inequalities as I mentioned, better redistribution of the wealth. So they were looking for that much more than building a democracy per se. And this has impacted the trajectory after because they were asking the state for recruitments in the public service, social transfers. They were asking for more state interference and this is what governments immediately after the revolution did. And this created different economic trajectory because they hired many of these people to the public service. The wage bill increased a lot. We went to the IMF. We entered in this cycle of debt, inflation, paying salaries, etc. You know, so the understanding of the revolution is very important and of course political parties exacerbated that pushing those young people to ask more the government, to governments who were working under huge pressure from those people mainly educated people but then unemployed. And for them we did the revolution for that, jobs, for dignity. I'm not sure for democracy with all what it entails.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a good question. It's definitely, my background impacted my type of leadership. And why I can say that easily because I was appointed as prime minister by the president. So as I mentioned we won the election in 2014. I was part of Nidaa Tounes, the party who won, secular party who won the election against Islamists and President Beji Caid Essebsi who was the founder of this party won the presidential election. So he became the president and then he appointed me first as a secretary of state for fishery then as a minister of local affairs then as a prime minister. So President Beji for example, his leadership he's not technical at all, he's just doing politics. And I can tell you even an anecdote, but my leadership is both as an engineer so I need before entering any council of ministers to know about any details or technical details to take the right decision because at the end everyone is looking to you to decide. So you need to have a minimum and this takes a lot of time. The problem of this type of leadership it consumes a lot of time but I was young. I was very young. So I mean I have a huge energy to work so I was on all fronts, trying to understand. The president used to have, as I mentioned he was like 90 years old, big experience etc. So he was exclusively political leadership and so sometimes he used to see me a little bit tired, you know, with all those days and night working on my documents etc. And he told me, you know, because also he was prime minister in 2011 before becoming president. So he told me usually at 12 I'm done, you know, I go to home in the afternoon. But work life balance. Yeah. Why are you so tired with this? Why you can't manage this easily? You know, because he was, even in the afternoon he goes to, he's in his palace but he's doing politics, thinking and preparing and anticipating etc. While I was doing both. So you need to be on the political battle but also at the end you need to answer the people's needs and requests. As I mentioned the revolution is before everything a social explosion. People are looking for more state interference, more jobs, more basic needs, you know, before any type of regime let's say. So you need to be there also and this requires a lot of technical preparation. You need to anticipate shortage of commodities, imports, exports, growth, agricultural, healthcare, you need to be on those sectors. Tourism, you know, when I arrived for example one of the biggest challenge was the terrorism. Tunisia was attacked by many terrorist attacks. Yeah that's why maybe the president decided to challenge the prime minister before me because the country was attacked. So once you have this type of attack, there's no economy, there's no tourism. Tunisia was under travel ban from most of the countries in the world. So when I arrived, this was one of the first challenge. I'm not an expert in this, but then you find yourself immersed in those kind of ISIS, al-Qaeda, all those groups, you need to fight them. And this was a huge investment.

Yeah. This is also very, thank you for this. Because leadership, maybe something now is becoming very important in leadership is about communication, is how to connect people to your vision. Because you can fight terrorism when there is a terrorist attack, people, you know, there is a national emotion etc. But it's there for like two weeks. But then the fight against terrorism is every day, you know, it's 24 hours. We had been attacked, you know, at any time in the week etc. So you need to explain to your population, communication is key now especially in this world of fake news and social networks. Governments they don't have the ability to follow the speed of this fake news and of those, not only my government but all governments now. It's overwhelming. Yeah, it's, you know, you have like five or 10 fake news a day but how can you treat that as a government? You can't go every time saying this is fake news this is not correct. So but then connecting people to your vision. So when I arrived I was very clear about fight against terrorism, said this is a number one priority. Fight against corruption is number two. Also repairing or fixing the budget because we were close to bankruptcy in Tunisia at that time. The public deficit was around 7% of the GDP. When I left it was around 3%. So this is another example. This is a huge achievement for us. People, when I was, I remember in the presidential election 2019 in the campaign I was saying when I arrived that public deficit was around 7% now it is around 3% we helped Tunisia avoiding any bankruptcy or default etc. But this was not a good argument for the population, they don't care about that. They care about, you know, their daily lives. It's not tangible enough for them and this was one of the mistakes because we were not enough clear to connect this to how important was it to reduce the debt. So communication is becoming very crucial today in order to connect the people to your vision and this is how you can maybe better succeed in your leadership. But it's very difficult.

And then this expectation, sorry to interrupt you, are also exacerbated by the political parties, right? Who were either in your opposition or they're lacking, you know, even the personnel forming those political parties including the ones that are supporting you they think that everything can be done overnight. Yes. So creating jobs etc. So remember my first speech when I came I was talking about austerity and I said if I'm not taking very difficult measures to the country we are going to bankruptcy. Was not very positive. And then I said in 2016 I remember the green light will start to, we start to see the green light in 2019. So people were saying will not wait, no patience for that especially with all the social networks. When is 2019? Yeah, people need something immediately. This is a threat for democracy because people are no longer able to wait for a mandate to decide if I have to reelect you or to elect another one after a certain period. Especially I think social networks exacerbated a little bit that kind of we need something immediately. Yeah. If you promise job creation we need it now. So this is becoming very challenging because also it opened the door for populism. Populism is a big threat also for democracy.

I think number one looking back was communication. You know we adopted a communication style that worked very well in the beginning. You know I was under huge political pressure from, you know I was running a government of national unity with six or seven political parties. Unions were also part of this government. Everyone was, you know what vision can you have or what plan can you have if you have leftist, right people, Islamists and nationalists, you know, unions, everyone, business leaders, all of them were supporting officially the government but everyone has, so it was a huge agenda. Yeah, different agendas. So this is I think what we were missing is about communication. I arrived in a time when it was, this period was before TikTok, before, it was maybe a turning point. So I adopted the type of communication where I'm not really going on every question, you know. But I think it was a mistake. You should go on every question, you don't, you need to don't let any rumor or any question that you don't answer because we as a government we have answer to everything. But I remember my advisor were saying to me no don't reduce the level don't answer to this because now with Facebook everyone can...

Critics can give an opinion even if it is false, and many can share this and think the same way. I think governments need to be there on every point, but they're not skilled, they're not equipped for that. It's huge. But Tunisia, I mean, 100% of the population is connected to Facebook, so any information there is becoming... sometimes, you know, in politics we say perception is reality. So even if the information is false, but they perceive it as true, it becomes a reality.

You don't need to have to let that... and I was thinking, no, people will think at the end of the day they will be rational, they will not believe this false or fake news. But it was a mistake, right? It is stronger than you think. Even if the information or the fake news appears to you, you know, it's impossible that someone can believe that, but you know, step by step...

And by the way, I was a victim of a huge cyber attack in the 2019 election. You know, I was number one in the polls for two years and seven months before the presidential election. I had a huge cyber, it was called psychological operations. They really started to attack me with fake news, etc., in order to make a kind of brainwashing of even my people who are supporting me. This is a very strong tool that can, you know, harm and destroy democracy, and we need to think of how to fix it.

No, it was a campaign, you know. So I was a prime minister, I was the most popular in the polls for two years. We were like seven months from the election. So many created a kind of political front against me. Islamist, non-Islamist, including people from my camp, state, etc. And then they started to spread fake news about the government, about me, everything, you know. All types of rumors. And in the beginning, I mean, I was thinking that this was not serious enough for a certain person to believe it. But then, you know, day after day, minute after minute, it starts to create a perception that becomes reality. And when I decided to interfere, it was maybe too late. And those are a destructive machine that you need to... for governments, you need to be really prepared, you know. Fake news is today, I think, one of the risky things for democracy.

Oh yes, not only in Tunisia. I see in Europe they have a lot of problems fighting against that. And this is a lesson on populism before populism becomes a catchy phrase in Western media, right? Because we live in... it is the combination between populism and social networks. This combination is a huge threat for democracies, and especially that if your democracy is not delivering enough and it's not delivering at the speed that your people are waiting for. So this combination can really destroy the democratic...

Yeah. In fact, what happened with the populists, they create several truths. You don't know what is the truth at the end. So you have several perceptions or several realities, and at the end, the one who speaks the loudest, maybe he creates this truth. But the truth is, there's no only one truth like before, you know, you read it in the newspaper. Now you have, you know, you can see several truths. Look for the COVID, for example. We saw different types of narratives. One are saying no, we don't need vaccine, others are saying the vaccine is mandatory. Same for the mask, etc. So at the end, an average citizen is really lost in this environment, and you don't know, and finally you trust the person who communicates to you better, who speaks to you better, despite if it is true or not, but he's saying the good wording that you need to hear, you know.