Former Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed on Governance, the Arab Spring, and Lessons Learned

Thank you, Abdulf. Thank you for coming to Harvard. I'm really happy to see you here. You know, I did many interviews and podcasts, but this one is special, and I am happy to do it because you are a young, motivated, if I may say, future Arab leader. And I believe that in our region, the move will be coming from the youth. So, and that's why this is a strong bet, and I hope that this discussion will also help you for your research and your studies in political science. And thank you for the invitation.

So when the Arab Spring started, you know, when Mohamed Bouazizi, the street vendor, immolated himself in Sidi Bouzid, 200 kilometers from the capital Tunis, and this sparked a movement across the Arab world. It was a big move at that time. I was moved, like everyone, like thousands of Tunisians, by this event, and I decided to leave everything and to contribute to the building of this new democracy. Of course, I was not expecting that I will become the prime minister of Tunisia, and more important, I was not expecting that the journey to democracy will be much more difficult than just removing the dictator Ben Ali. So, I decided to, and I was not alone, thousands of Tunisians decided to do the same. We were dreaming of building a democracy like we see in Europe or in the United States. This was a dream, and we started to have this new environment of freedom, freedom of press, freedom of speech. We were able to organize ourselves. So I decided to create a political party, and by the way, there were like 200 political parties created immediately after the 2011 revolution because we were finally free and we were not looking for any authorization from the government or from the Ministry of Interior like before. So we were able to organize ourselves, and so I decided with many friends, because we have a certain vision for our country, let's say mainly economic and social vision. But then things turned differently when the Islamists won the election in October 2011. So I understood immediately that the goal will not be just about having an economic vision or social vision for the country. It was more to protect the Tunisian model, long history of secularism in Tunisia that were threatened by the rise of Islamists and Salafists, and we'll talk about that later. So this is how I started. I created a political party, called it, it was a very small one with friends, etc. And as things were evolving, I saw that I cannot continue with just a small number of people, even if we had very good ideas and we were motivated. As I mentioned, I was not alone. I have many people with me, young people that studied abroad and they came back to Tunisia and they wanted to contribute. But then as the political landscape was evolving toward the confrontation between the secular progressive camp and the Islamists, as I mentioned, I understood that it will not be enough just to work on an economic vision for the country. But then I started to seek for alliances, and we made, we were very good in this, let's say. So we made the first alliance with another political party and we created what we called the Jumhuri. And I became the president of this party in 2012. Then we created an alliance with the PDP, which is the historical political party in Tunisia led by Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, who's in jail unfortunately now, and I wish he will be released soon. Ahmed Nejib Chebbi was the leader of the opposition in Tunisia against Ben Ali, and we did this coalition with PDP but also other political parties. So this was a composition of left, right, liberal, because the goal was over the political classical division, you know, it was how to protect the Tunisian model, women's rights, women's status, etc., against the strong arrival of political Islam that we saw after 2011. So when we joined this coalition, we were able, despite the fact that we were young, to impose our name for this coalition. So the PDP of Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, another liberal party, and other six or seven other small political parties, the coalition was named Jumhuri. Also, they took the name of our small political party, and it became Jumhuri that still exists today, and the secretary general is Chebbi, who's the brother of Najib Chebbi, who is in jail also today for conspiracy, etc., etc. And again, I wish him and all political prisoners to get released. So I became a member of this, and we were in what we call the high political committee with Ahmed Nejib Chebbi and other militants against Ben Ali, including Maya Jerni, who was a very strong woman against the dictatorship of Ben Ali. So I was involved in this environment with these people that had strong experience of militantism. And as I mentioned, we were there to lead the fight against the Islamist rise of Ennahda and others. And there we were joined by other political parties, mainly a party that was created by President Beji Caid Essebsi. And in 2013, there were big events: assassination of Chokri Belaid in February 2013, then the assassination of Mohamed Brahmi on July 25th, 2013. And at that time, we were of course again pushing for a big coalition of the progressive, democratic, secular camp. So coming from this small Jumhuri, we went to the big Jumhuri that still exists today with, as I mentioned, people that were fighting for human rights and against Ben Ali. Then we were still pushing for a bigger alliance with Nidaa Tounes that was created by President Beji Caid Essebsi, who was former minister under Bourguiba, etc. But then he was the prime minister who, let's say, organized the first election after 2011. So we have a relation with President Beji, and we tried to make a unique front between Jumhuri and Nidaa Tounes. There was also Joumhouri that was created mainly by leftists, and we succeeded to have like a salvation front when Chokri Belaid was assassinated. But then we were not able to have this, of course there were egos and fight for leadership, etc. But then we decided, with hundreds or thousands of other people from Jumhuri, to move to Nidaa Tounes. This was after Chokri, after Mohamed Brahmi was assassinated. So that's how I joined Nidaa Tounes, and I was working in the campaign of President Beji, in the presidential campaign. And President Beji won the election in December 2014, and Nidaa Tounes won the legislative election with 89 seats. This was in 2014. The Islamist party of Ennahda won, was second with 69 seats. And so this is how I joined Nidaa Tounes, and I became in the campaign of President Beji, that I of course I know President Beji for many years because he was minister of interior, minister of defense, minister of foreign affairs, and he occupied many, he was a strong political person. So this is how I joined Nidaa Tounes, and then President Beji decided after he won the election to appoint Habib Essid as prime minister, and I was appointed in this government of Habib Essid as a secretary of state for fisheries. Since my background is, I'm an agricultural engineer and I did a PhD in agricultural, in agribusiness, etc. So my first role in the government of Habib Essid was, and by the way, this was the best one, you know, because you travel the country visiting the ports and the fisheries and things like that, and you meet all those people. It's, compared to the prime minister, this was much better, you know. And then I spent like one year as a secretary of state for fisheries, then I was appointed as minister of local affairs. So the new constitution voted in 2014, there is a chapter, chapter 7, devoted to decentralization, or devolution, I mean how to create a decentralization of the state of Tunisia. So this was to create municipalities everywhere, to work on a legal code on how to transfer prerogatives from the center to the region. This was part of the constitution. So we created this ministry. It was a new ministry created after the revolution, and I was in charge of this ministry from February 2016 to August. And then in August, I was appointed prime minister till February 2020.

It was a big moment. You know, we were living under Ben Ali's regime for 23 years. But everyone knows we were not able to speak freely, to organize ourselves. We were afraid. It was a police state. It was a police state. You know, everyone was careful, including in your social relations. So this moment, I mean, I was deeply moved by the collapse of not only Ben Ali, but how this movement sparked across, went to Libya, to Yemen, to Egypt, starting from Tunisia. You know, this was really something that moved me, and there was a strong emotion for thousands of Tunisians. You know, we thought that this moment will never leave. This moment, and I saw it as a huge opportunity in order to contribute to how to serve my country, you know, because under a dictatorship regime, I mean, you can't. And by the way, these people that I was mentioning, they are very courageous, they are very confronting a dictator, asking for human rights, etc. It's something very important. So it was a very, I mean, and by the way, Tunisia, I mean, I think we spent like a couple of weeks in this euphoria, if I may say. But then, as you know, the Tunisian revolution, there was no leadership, there was no political leadership. It was those young people that went out confronting the police, etc., and the regime of Ben Ali. No one was expecting that, by the way. And this is a big problem in dictatorship regimes, as I always say, you know, dictatorships are stable until the last 15 minutes. So you don't know, and the fact that you don't know, you are not prepared. We were not prepared for that. No one was expecting that a strong regime like Ben Ali's regime with the RCD party, we were talking about 2 million persons involved in the RCD. We were talking about thousands of people involved in the police, etc. So Ben Ali left after one month. So Mohamed Bouazizi immolated himself on December 17th, 2010. Ben Ali left on January 14th, you know, so it's less than one month. So, and the fact that we were not prepared as a country impacted the post-transition period, and this is not only for Tunisia. I saw that many transitions collapse because first you don't have the political personnel to manage this post-transition period, and we'll talk about that. But also expectations are different, you know. And again, in December, I'm not sure that the young generation that went to the street, you remember the slogan at that time: jobs, dignity, freedom. I'm not sure that this generation were looking for democracy per se, with all what this includes. They were looking for freedom, they were looking for jobs, they were looking for, let's say, better redistribution of the wealth. And I believe the same in Egypt. I'm not sure that the, I mean, I'm talking about the mass population, you know, maybe the elite were looking, I mean, who is westernized, EU or US-oriented, that studied in the universities in Europe, they lived in democracy, etc. But then the mass population was more looking for better distribution of the wealth, more social equity. And because in our countries, not only in Tunisia, in Egypt also, there are always divides, you know, between the north and the south. In Tunisia, there was a strong divide between the coastal area and the inner area of the country. If you look to the revenue per capita, if I may say, you will find differences. If you look to the infrastructure, and by the way, Mohamed Bouazizi was from Sidi Bouzid, which is a region in the inner area of the country, a poor area, between brackets. And this division, you can find them in many Arab countries, you know. And the global perception is that this is coming from the corruption of the regime, of the family of the regime, either the Ben Ali family or the Mubarak family or the Gaddafi family. So the people that created this revolution, they were looking for dignity, for social equity, for better distribution of the wealth. But by the way, Tunisia, Egypt were growing at 5, 6% at that time. The problem was that the growth was not equally distributed among the population, and this because of the corruption of the, as I mentioned, because of this dictatorship regime, and people start to perceive that, at least in Tunisia. So why I'm saying that? Because the people, again, there was maybe, again, there was an alignment of interest between the elite who was looking for democratic system of government, but the people were looking more for, as I mentioned, social equity. There were common points, but at the end, those two directions were not completely aligned, and at the end, the expectations were not the same, and this impacted governments after, since the expectation of your population is not democracy, again. You know, I mean, this does not mean that in the Arab world we cannot build democracy or there are no expectations of democracy. I believe the mass population, including now, is looking for the strong man who can fix the economy rather than the type of governance, rather than the type of regime, you know. Maybe again, the elite want, I mean, understand this. And so, yeah, so this is the Tunisian revolution. It was a strong moment, and again, I'm against all those conspiracy theories saying that this was prepared outside Tunisia. This was a Tunisian 100% movement led by Tunisians. It is not because people think that this took a wrong direction, for in their perception, that this became coming from, you know, the foreign occult forces, etc. This was a Tunisian movement. No one expected this movement, including in foreign countries or embassies, etc. It was a Tunisian movement created by the conditions that were in Tunisia. Mohamed Bouazizi was perceiving a kind of injustice because, you know, he was selling in the street, etc. And I think this perception is common among many other Tunisians, and this is how the movement went from Sidi Bouzid to other towns and cities, and then to other countries.

The economic aspect, of course, is important. Maybe it helped the democracy to survive longer, I would say. But then democracy is not responsible for the, including in Tunisia now, I'm talking of the bad economic situation or social situation. Of course, many anti-democratic political parties or politicians make the link, saying, look, if your conditions are bad, it is because of this democratic system, blah, blah, blah, etc. Of course, there were huge difficulties in Tunisia in order to implement this new system after so many years of dictatorship. But let me say, the global idea is that countries living under democracy perform better than under autocracy. This you can compare historically GDP or GDP per capita, and you should find something clear in that. But then, of course, the economic point is very important. And Tunisia, when the Arab Spring started, if you go back to 2010 and 2011, and if you look to the modernization theory or democratization theories, etc., many of the scholars at that time expected that the experience will not succeed because the income was very low. Tunisia's income per capita was around $4,000 or $5,000, which is not meeting the pre-required condition for a successful democracy. But then there was a lot of enthusiasm, and the 10 years, as you mentioned, where the democracy survived showed that it's not only about economy. And again, I believe that the Tunisian democracy collapsed not for economic reasons, and I gave you the best proof for that. You can just compare the economic situation now, compare it to the situation during the democratic period. So if democracy is responsible for that, what about now? You know, if you compare, everything is deteriorating in terms of economic indicators today, compare it to the, including, if you compare the price of, I don't know, simple commodities like the kilogram of beef, it was multiplied by two or three, you know, compared to what is called the democratic dark decade by some people. So democracy is not responsible for the bad economic situation. Many use that as an argument in elections. You know, I remember in 2019 election when I was a candidate, all my opponents were saying the economy is a disaster, etc. Today the economy is in a much more difficult situation, but they are not saying anything, you know, at the time they were able to speak. So no, the economy is important to make this, and by the way, you can see many countries, what we call democracy in hard places, where democracy continues to exist despite very difficult economic situations. You have many examples in the world, you know, countries that are still living in democracy, they have freedom of speech, they vote freely, etc., but the economy is not in good condition. So, yeah, the economy is important. It was always used as an argument to explain that democracy is not the perfect system and to justify a kind of return to a regime. But I don't think that democracy is responsible for the bad economic results. It is the wrong understanding by certain people of democracy rather than democracy in itself, you know. So yeah, but this is a very important point, you know, because economy is always used, including in the democratic period, in any election, we were complaining about the economic conditions, etc. And again, Tunisia, look today, compare the economic situation. And again, even in July 2021, Tunisians went to the street not for economic reasons. They went to the street to ask for vaccines against COVID, to complain against the parliament that was not working in their interest. At least this is how they perceived. No one was asking for economic reforms or economic conditions, etc. But this was always present somewhere, including the politicians exaggerated a lot this argument.

Yeah, this is a very important question, you know, about even the day-to-day governance. So I remember when I arrived, I did my first speech in the parliament asking for the vote. I used this word of austerity measures, you know, because I wanted to have a message of truth, speaking as a young, I tried to speak in the Tunisian dialect to touch people, etc. And so, but the numbers that were presented to me, the public deficit was around 7%, the debt was, I mean, when I arrived to the government in August 2016, the Tunisian currency already lost 52% against the dollar. So the damage is there. Sometimes people say, oh, you are responsible, I mean, you can check that. This is something that you can easily check. You know, compare the dinar to the euro or dollar when Ben Ali left, compare it to August 2016, you will see that there was a decline of 52%. Same thing for the reserves, you know, with the foreign currency, who are very important in our countries. Ben Ali left, there was like $9 billion in the central bank. When I arrived, it was something like $6.7 billion. So you arrive in these conditions, and by the way, when I arrived, the previous government signed an agreement with the IMF just 3 months before I came. This makes it very difficult for you, and I will give you, it's like an anecdote, but this is a reality. So the previous government signed a deal with the IMF in March 2016, and the main point was to reduce this ratio of salary on GDP. It was around 15%. One of the highest in the world. So Tunisia was paying salaries and pensions and social transfers, it was something like 15% of your GDP. You know, it's very high. So the government signed at that time, before I came as prime minister, they signed an agreement in order to reduce that. When I entered the government, I found an agreement signed with unions in order to increase salaries. So how can you touch this ratio if you will spend more on salaries? So you should really increase your GDP. How can you do that? Since 2016, there were several terrorist attacks in Tunisia, etc. There was no tourism, etc. The growth was something like 0.6% in 2015 and 2016. So I find myself in front of this contradiction. And by the way, what should you do with this IMF agreement? For a moment, I thought that no, I'm not responsible for this IMF agreement, I will not accept it. But then you have things like continuity of the state, the signature of a former prime minister or government, you should, and President Beji at that time told me, no, you should take this agreement, this is the continuity of the state, and this is what we did. So we inherited this situation. And so, by the way, my first speech, I announced that I will postpone the salary increase that was scheduled and signed before me. This was, so I announced that in September, a few weeks after I arrived to the government, the UGTT, the main workers' union in Tunisia, announced a general strike for December 9th. Can you believe that? Just three months after I arrived, there was a general strike. In the history of Tunisia, there were like three or four general strikes. This was the first one, and by the way, I will have two or three after against me or against my government. So it was very difficult, you know, how to balance all those tensions. Everyone, I mean, this is a small example between a balance between IMF agreements and domestic or local agreement with unions. So we spent, I mean, it also consumed a lot of time, you know, we tried to renegotiate with IMF, renegotiate with the unions, etc., in order to win time, in order to have less burden on the budget, etc. So, and then when I arrived in August, I saw the indicators, the debt was increasing, you know, the debt went from 38% in 2011 to 58% when I arrived, or I mean, it was already the trend was there. So, the goal, and of course, I called thousands of experts or dozens of experts to help me. So understand, if I succeed to stabilize the situation, means to stabilize the currency, to stabilize the debt, and try to have an inflection or first reduction, and this is what we have in 2018, first time when the debt started to decrease a little bit, to stabilize the public deficit, this will be a big success. Then how you explain that to your population? And by the way, during the presidential campaign in 2019, I was talking about these achievements, you know, but no one cared. I mean, people didn't care about that. What does it bring for an average person if you reduce the public deficit from 6% to 3%? Okay, it's good for you, but this is, you know, and again, here it's about communication, how you explain that. So while you have a strong expectation from the population, so this was a very difficult balance. And by the way, maybe we failed in that, in trying to explain to the population. I mean, I tried to do that, to explain that, and in my speech, I was saying that the green light will come in 2019. And this is what happened, by the way. But then people will not accept, you know, that you became prime minister in 2016 and things will turn to the green light in 2019. It's too, I mean, and this is a problem not only for Tunisia. Now democracies are under threat of this combination of populism and social networks and social media that creates something that people ask for something immediately. They voted for you today. Okay, sometimes you're talking about 100 first days. What can a government do in 100 days? Including in developed countries, you know, it's, but now people are asking for immediate things. You know, they're no longer able to wait for the end of the mandate to try to decide, should I elect again this person or elect another one. They want something immediately. And this is threatening many democracies, by the way, this, as I mentioned, social networks, including fake news and things like that. So, and we confronted that, we tried to explain to the population, and by the way, I paid a high political price for that personally, you know, because people, including, for example, to save or to protect the retirees' fund, you know, that were collapsing, I was obliged to increase taxes, etc. So, of course, all those austerity measures, they gave very good results in 2019. And by the way, when there was the COVID in 2020, the government that came after me, they sent the IMF a letter requesting a COVID plan from the IMF, and it was accepted because of those good results in terms of reducing deficit, reducing the debt, stabilizing the currency, etc. But then again, you pay a high political price because, you know, of course, all the opposition were playing in that, you know, saying this guy is responsible for the, I don't know, and by the way, if you do that, there is an inflation in the country for sure, because you increase taxes, you increase interest rates, etc. Business people are not happy, etc. But then, you know, the goal at that time is to protect the state, to avoid any collapse. And don't forget that in 2020 or 2019, we had a collapse in Lebanon when Prime Minister Hariri announced that he was not able to pay a debt, and we were under the same threat, you know, in Tunisia also. Back to your question, repaying debt is very crucial, you know, not missing any, to avoid any default, you know, because once you are in this situation, look at what happened in Lebanon.

So it was a mix, but mainly, let's say, macro. So when I arrived, public deficit ratio to the GDP was around 6%, when I left, it was 3%. This is what I call protecting the state, avoiding any collapse, you know, because Tunisia is a country, it's not an oil country. We don't have resources that can, I mean, we are under fiscal stress. So if you go over 6, 7% public deficit, it can be, you know, it's an alert, and then it will impact, of course, other things, inflation, etc. And by the way, we went over that after the COVID in 2021, 2022, it went until 8 and 7%. But no one is complaining now. Anyway, so we succeeded in reducing the public deficit. The debt, as I mentioned, first time, so the debt from 2016 to 2019 increased by 8% over three years. What we succeeded to do is to reduce the speed compared to before, you know. So 8%, I mean, somehow it's normal to take debt, you know, if this debt will help to invest or infrastructure projects, etc. It's not just paying salaries or pensions. So we succeeded to reduce the speed of evolution of the debt. 8% in three years, it's an acceptable result, you know, and the first inflection in this curve happened in 2019. If you compare it, it was a decline. And by the way, Moody's made the first appreciation after the revolution in 2019 for Tunisia, you know, where the note was somehow stabilized. But then there were other tangible results, including for tourism, you know, when I arrived, Tunisia was blacklisted because of the attacks of ISIS and Daesh that we had, you know, Bardo Museum. Tunisia was attacked by ISIS in Ben Guerdane city, the city neighboring Libya, and they tried to establish an Islamic Emirate at the time, and Tunisia was under a travel ban. No country, I mean, people from Europe and US cannot travel, and this is a very touristic country, and tourism is something between 7 and 9% of the GDP. So we succeeded to securitize the country. This is another part, you know, about fighting terrorism, that also diverts you from working on, because without security, you can't do anything. So we succeeded in having security, then the travel ban was lifted, and then in 2019, we had one of the best, 10 million visitors visited Tunisia after the travel ban was removed. This is something concrete, people can feel it, you know, because we can see that. But then the macroeconomic achievements, of course, you need time to go to the microeconomic level, touching people. So those, I mean, and we were working on different fronts, you know, as I mentioned, we were protecting the state from a collapse, I mean, you need to be realistic, you know. But then we tried to boost growth. We had 2.6 or 2.7% growth in 2018, which is one of the best years during this democratic decade. And by the way, the democratic decade, the economy suffered for many reasons, but the economy suffered, and the people finally feel that. And I will give you a concrete example how people can feel that. I will make it as a picture, but look, as a prime minister, when you enter office, every morning, so the most important thing, because this also reminds what happened immediately after the revolution. There was like a social explosion in Tunisia, because the revolution is, as I mentioned, social strikes, stopping production, etc. So what governments did immediately after the revolution, in order to, they bought peace by employing all these people in the public service. There was like something like 200,000 persons recruited in the public service, and this created a huge burden on the budget. So the salary bill in Tunisia between 2010 and 2020 was multiplied by three. It represents something, it depends, between 45 to 47% of the budget. So first thing, when you go to your office in the morning, you should work how to pay the salaries, because if you don't pay them, you are in trouble. You know, those are thousands of people working in the public service. So this will take 45%, let's say, of your budget. Then you have to pay, as we mentioned, the debts, in order to avoid any debt default. This will take like 10% more of your budget. Then you have to pay for subsidies, in order to keep prices acceptable for, especially the poor and the middle, the average class. This will take another 10%. So here, I mean, of course, this is a picture, you already spent 70% of your budget, and you are not spending or investing in education, in transportation, in healthcare. And over the years, people start to feel that. People start to feel a deterioration of the education, of the transportation, of healthcare, of hospitals, etc. And this is a small explanation why we went to this trouble, because the first governments immediately after the revolution, under this huge social pressure, I'm not, I mean, I'm trying to explain that, they hired thousands of people in the public service, as I mentioned, it was multiplied by three, and unions, of course, took advantage of that, and because unions became strong, including in the fight against Islamists, this gave them a political role that allowed them to ask for more salaries, etc., etc. But this impacted the economic trajectory of the country. So you cannot analyze the economic trajectory without trying to understand the social dynamic that happened in Tunisia immediately after the revolution. So, in a simple picture, what happened economically speaking, so it's like in a family, you know, we start to spend more, as I mentioned, we multiplied by three the salary bill. In the same time, because of this social movement that spread over the country, the production was stopped. The phosphate production was reduced from 8 million tons to 3 or 4 million tons. The oil production was reduced from 100,000 barrels per day to 30,000 barrels per day. So look, this is a very simple equation that we have. So you have expenditures that are increasing, and your production is being reduced. So that's how you have deficit, and to fund this deficit, you take debts, loans, IMF, you enter in this cycle, and then you continue to increase salaries under the pressure of unions. So you have inflation. So then the unions complain about the inflation, asking for more salary increases, etc. This is the simple equation of Tunisia. I remember people were asking me to change the business model of the country. I was saying, wait, let's fix this, stabilize, let's have the production of oil back to 100,000 barrels. Let's have the phosphate back to 6 or 7 million tons per day. Let's manage this social dynamic, you know, and this was the challenge, you know, because people, as I mentioned, back to the thinking of the revolution, that they did the revolution in order for their dignity. So I remember when I was visiting, you know, Gafsa or Tataouine, or people were, young people were protesting, they were asking for their part of this natural resources.

And I think another question that I think touches on this also pretty heavily is the 2018 finance act and the austerity measures it introduced, including subsidy cuts and new taxes. It triggered mass street protests with demonstrators in dozens of cities chanting, quote, 'the people want to topple the budget,' after the 2019 general strike. And so my question is, how does one balance cutting the budget deficit while ensuring that the populace is actually brought along for what's coming? So how does one close that gap? Could you share your experience and insight in that regard, and whether you think it could have been done differently?

We need to have our part from the oil. We contribute as a region, and those are something legitimate. You know, how can you argue against that? You know, that the state is not redistributing enough for them. You know, so they want something immediately. So the social movement was very strong, and those forces that appeared after the revolution, what I'm calling the social dynamic, sometimes they dictated to government how the decisions that they make. They have to take out of any economic rationality, you know. And we saw many of that, and this impacted the economic trajectory.

Leadership in the government is to have a vision for your country. This is very important. You need to have a vision. I remember that I decided to give my vision in a speech in front of students in one of the elite schools in Tunisia a few months after I arrived. And this is again a problem, you know, you need to have a real vision, not just things that you can wishful thinking as we say. You need to have the real numbers and you need to see what is the capacity of your administration, of your bureaucracy, etc. So I gave this speech when I gave a vision for Tunisia. I said we want Tunisia a free democratic country with free and fair elections. We want to build a social economy and we want that the state focus on the central core, like the army, the security forces, the education. And I mean it was a big debate at the time. There was like three public banks and I said why the state needs to own three banks and they will sell them. And this of course unions immediately said wow wow wow he's liberal he's manipulated by I don't know who etc. So you need to have a vision. Vision is crucial in leadership. But then of course it's not enough. You need to motivate people because leadership is how to inspire people in order to take action to achieve this vision. So you need to motivate and you have a big team of advisors, ministers, governors etc. and how to motivate all these people collectively around the project but also individually, especially that many of them, especially that we were in a government of coalition. And here back to the political system that prevent you from having a coherent team because you know the vote needs to go through the parliament. So if you want to appoint a minister he needs to go through the vote. So you are not looking for the best skilled person for this job. You are looking for someone who can get the vote. And again if you wanted to remove him you can remove him but then you have to go again to the parliament. So imagine the time that you spend in fixing this coalition and fixing the vote for this minister or that minister etc. and finding the good balance. We lost a lot of time in those political fights etc. So motivating your people is important. Communication is key. Communication especially in this world of fake news and governments they don't have the ability to follow the speed of the fake news. You can have fake news every hour in a government. So how can you do that? We don't have teams enough to go and to say no this is true this is not true etc. This is a big problem by the way. So communication is key because also you need to connect the population to your vision and back to the example that we discussed about the deficit. Okay. So and this is a concrete example when we were saying that we succeeded in reducing deficit people were saying oh I don't care about that because we failed in connecting people to the importance how the deficit will impact inflation and how will it impact their daily lives. So communication is key. Motivating people and again leadership is not about the position. Position will give you authority. Leadership will give you direction. And we saw that many governments they don't have this vision. And by the way this is biggest problem and it's not about the leadership of the prime minister or the president or the minister. You need to work in enabling environment in order to drive the change. And this is what we failed in Tunisia by the way after the revolution because prime minister or president cannot be everywhere. You cannot duplicate yourself. And look countries like UAE or Saudi Arabia or Qatar they invested a huge amount of money in training their leaders in the US or in Europe and they're improving a lot. And in North Africa we have a big problem in Tunisia of that. I remember that I was able to identify 200 positions in Tunisia where we need strong leader. You know I cannot pay the leader strong leader that who is managing the biggest company of phosphate in Tunisia as domestic salary to be honest. And I decided look those are 200 positions. We can make a real change if we have strong leader in those positions and we will be able to pay them a decent salary including the Tunisian diaspora that are managing biggest company in Europe and in the US. But then of course I prepared this law. I called this the law for something like the upper public service or something like that. And of course unions created big debate saying no everyone needs to follow the same path etc and we were not able to have this law and those are things that it's not a big idea but I think Morocco did it with good results. So those are things that we can change in our system but again we have many obstacles including in term of mentalities and resistance to change. So yeah I mean day-to-day governance in office you first you work on the security side because without security including fighting terrorism because as I mentioned the first goal that was assigned to me when I arrived to the government was to fight against terrorism and I'm not an expert but I became someone who spend hours and hours in trying to explain and understand ISIS and Ansar al-Sharia etc how these movements are why they are doing that why we have so many jihadists leaving Tunisia to Syria. So this was a big challenge because look in the fight against terrorism when there is a terrorist attack there is like a national unity like for two weeks and then people forget about that but you government you need to work on that days and night because you can have a terrorist attack everywhere every time. It's something like and you need to motivate your security forces. When I arrived to the government as I mentioned there were like four attacks: Bardo museum, a resort in Sousse in June 2016, Ben Guerdane as I mentioned, ISIS the presidential guard was attacked in Habib Bourguiba Avenue just in front of the ministry of interior and many people died in this attack. The security forces were really exhausted and really tired including in their psychology. So you need to be close to them. You need to give them the political backing in this period of first period after the revolution there was a lot of problem with Salafist movement etc.