 Okay, I'd like to welcome. Thank you all for coming. My name is Steve McInerney. I'm the executive director of Pullman project on Middle East democracy and we're excited to be hosting this event today along with the New America Foundation and This is the I think it's the third event that we've Help put on on Tunisia over the past eight months. We had an event here with the New America Foundation in October just after the National constituent assembly elections looking at those we had an event a few months ago And now we're excited to kind of have an update and look at things in Tunisia We think that while there's been more attention on some of the other countries in the region, particularly Egypt You know, we think it's important to remember that Tunisia is where all of the Arab spring uprisings began and You know most of the tension that has been on Tunisia and over the past year has been relatively positive Tunisia is often thought of here in Washington in sort of relative terms and compared to the other transitions and by most measures Tunisia's transition seems to be progressing More effectively and productively toward the democracy that we all think to see then in many of the other countries But nonetheless, you know, we think it's important to kind of look beyond just this sort of simple Relative comparison and look at kind of the details of how things are going Tunisia And there are a number of causes for concern that we'll kind of examine and talk about today We're excited to have the panel that we have today But the last time that tomorrow Wittes and I mean galley and I were all in the same room was January 13th 2011 which was the day before Ben Ali stepped down and I remember Discussing with both of them kind of Over the course of that week. We're at a conference in Doha and kind of talking about the developments and Which were sort of unprecedented and historic and even on on the 13th the day before that he stepped down It wasn't clear that he was Wasn't it wasn't clear to most that he was going to step down the first person that definitively told me a few days before that That he was definitely finished and definitely we're gonna step down was a mean and We're having lunch and he said no, there's no question about Ben Ali's finished And it's just a question of whether it'll be a few days or a few weeks But but there's no way he can survive this and there was something that you know for those of us We're watching the Arab world would you know sounded like a sort of bold prediction But turn out turn it out within a few days to be correct and then of course lead to events in other countries so excited to have a mean in town from from Tunisia this week and Excited to have Alexis and tomorrow join us as well without turn it over to Laila Halal who will moderate the session Will be momentarily in it. Yeah, okay So I'm the director of the Middle East task force a new America and We're very excited to have this conversation about Tunisia as Steve mentioned it's Not Tunisia is much less visible in the the media I think that's partly because the assumption is it's a success story and requires less attention But there are other reasons too. I think Tunisia is not can as considered as a strategic ally as Egypt, but The question is that we will try to explore today is is Tunisia a model transition for the Arab revolutions the conventional wisdom is that it is and There have been recent developments in the past month or well, I mean a couple of months longer perhaps that Suggest that its transition is fragile and there's also sort of competing parallel conventional wisdom emerging on Tunisia that Its transition could be in peril So we want to test both sort of thoughts on Tunisia success versus fragility and I will be moderating the session with our Speakers in a conversational style. We have Experts at the table That I will now introduce Speaker fine, okay Sorry There's sorry Yeah, okay Now it's working. Okay. So to my right is a mean galley He is a program director at the Tunis based out Kawakibi democracy transition center This is a Tunisian NGO that's been in existence for 2000 since 2006 thus Amin's a Strategic location to predict the fall He is Was or is part of the National Commission to investigate corruption in Tunisia and a leading voice on issues of Transitional justice in the country. He's part of the committee that has been appointed to draft Investigation into transitional justice law which will propose How transitional justice should be pursued in the country Indicating a step-by-step thinking on this important issue which we will investigate To his right is Alexis Arif who is an analyst on Africa in the Maghreb at the Congressional Research Service and she is responsible for putting out policy analysis on Algeria Morocco and Tunisia She has been producing updates on Tunisia's transition that I have found particularly useful and I thank you for that Very glad to have you with us to set the stage on the conversation today Tamara Widditt is a senior fellow and director of the Saban Center for Middle East policy at Brookings a position. She recently assumed re-assumed after Service in the US government particularly Interesting service as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Near Eastern Affairs She was from 2009 to January 2012. So she was coordinating US policy in response To the Arab uprising. She was part She led the Middle East Partnership Initiative and served as Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Transitional Office headed by Bill Taylor. So Tamara has a particularly broad and Striking Commentary that she can provide to us both in terms on of Tunisia's progress and US policy towards the country And to start off, I'm going to ask Alexis to sort of just map What's happening in Tunisia today for those that may be less familiar with day-to-day development? So The there is a target that deadline for drafting the common institution, which is October 23rd and there's an intention to hold parliamentary elections in Assuming that they put together a parliamentary system to hold elections for the regular government in early 2013 This is these are ambitious deadlines and the first question for you is are they realistic deadlines? How advanced is the constitution making process? Is there an election law in place and election commission to guide the process? I Also want you to talk a bit about sectoral reforms And the key ones obviously in any political transition from autocracy to democracy would be media judiciary and security There is you know a sense a conventional wisdom again that Tunisia's political Transition is going very well, but the economics are a much harder question and in fact the economics have been you know much more visible in terms of Understanding what provoked the revolution in Tunisia and the challenges in the country so if you could sort of set the stage in terms of Well, you know this unemployment situation in the country that would be useful and then finally there have been a lot of media reports in the West about security about the security situation and the confrontation between supposedly Salafis and or religious conservatives and others So if you could comment on that as well Thank you. Sure, and thanks. Thanks for having this clearly very timely event given the turnout It's it's a little bit of a event of an awkward position to be sitting next to these two and to be asked to lay the scene For Tunisia, so I'll try to keep my my remarks brief because I'm really looking forward to hearing both of you Give your sense of what's going on and it is a very It's been a very interesting week in Tunisia, so I it's hard to interpret the events that are under unfolding as we speak I think broadly speaking Tunisians are finding themselves sort of midway through the second year in their transition and at this point, it's a point of stock taking in a way And they can point to some very significant achievements. I mean obviously the holding of the elections the putting in place of a representative government the start of constitution drafting And the start at least of discussions about how to approach these very thorny and complex issues of Institutional reform although I I look forward to hearing from a mean on sort of what that feels like on the ground and what actual Concrete progress has been made in those areas I Think that the constituent assembly in some ways is still finding its way forward It has an unusual sort of dual role in which it is both a legislative body and sort of the supposed to embody the legitimacy of the Tunisian quasi-transitional government, but at the same time is supposed to be focused on Constitution drafting so on the one hand Constitution drafting is advancing I'll be it relatively slowly up till now. We saw the start of a preamble text released I think just this week And at the same time the constituent assembly is supposed to be dealing with issues such as the economic crisis and and how to respond on Sort of day-to-day governance issues Along with the with the coalition government, so that's a difficult position for them And I think they're still figuring out how best to address that dual role to the extent that some Provisional text from the from the Constitution drafting process has been released publicly, which is to say not very much But this preamble draft that has circulated It does appear to be the product of a good faith effort on the part of the various actors to reach some kind of consensus around How to state Their project of a Tunisian society and government And it does appear to be an effort to forge common ground among the many Constituencies that are involved in drafting that said the preamble should perhaps be the easiest part of the Constitution So I think we have to wonder sort of what that says about progress on the more important and thornier issues the next elections as As we're mentioned are supposed to mark sort of the next phase in Tunisia's transition and a more definitive phase After deciding what form of government Tunisia will have and sort of various other more concrete aspects of the future shape of the government And and how the government relates to society I think that there's a lot of questions about the management of those elections Nothing has really been definitively settled in terms of the electoral law and the shape of the electoral management institutions On the but I think there's there's some start of discussions that might lead us forward and hopefully in time for Hopefully these things will all coalesce. Although, you know, we'll have to see in terms of the reforms Certainly Efforts such as the investigations into corruption under the former former regime, which I mean, of course participated in Have helped advance our understanding of how the authoritarian regime functioned and could lay the groundwork for future reforms of for example the justice sector for example the institutions of economic governance and oversight But I think it very much remains to be seen how the government and national constituent assembly will handle these questions of reforms and very little Concretely has been advanced on that front Similarly, there have been some efforts to try senior former leaders for various crimes With mixed results Ben Ali obviously still remains in exile And there have been disputes about how the other trials have been handled and their results But the question of what to do with everyone else who who formed part of the former regime and the system and the party That remains very much to be seen as well I think the economy Does represent a major challenge in the short run and certainly I Think that the problems with the economy are structural So these are not easily addressed quickly and in the kind of timeline that Tunisia's leaders may be hoping for in order to show concrete progress on the economy Which a lot of Tunisians are looking for in order to gauge the success of this phase of government, and that's a real challenge Obviously a lot of Tunisians think that if they don't see direct economic dividends personally that this is not a success for them So that remains very much to be sort of seen and handled from the part of the government You also asked about the security situation I think that there's there's different levels of security that are being conflated in some ways There is real concern about sort of transnational arms smuggling and maybe transnational extremist groups Not necessarily operating within Tunisia, but using Tunisian territory to transit between Libya and Algeria for example That's one thing to be concerned about it sort of the issue a more almost technocratic issue of budget border security at the same time there are Gaping problems with the internal security services Which would presumably need to be addressed through a broad-based process of security sector reform Informed by public consultations that process is very much nascent and again sort of very few concrete Signs of progress yet, which I mean hopefully that means that we're just about to see the future roadmap and then you have these Clashes between Tunisian Salafist groups or self-identified Salafist groups which actually cover a broad range of ideologies and backgrounds and and Tunisian security forces and To some in Tunisia this highlights the transition the current government's failure to address Public security when it concerns people who might be part of their constituency for other Tunisians this represents sort of a Failure to to integrate marginalized groups into the political process the framework through which this is seen is is important in terms of Figuring out a way forward and another the largest party and the and the coalition leader in the government has recently shifted tone quite quite significantly Between between talking as they did before about bringing these groups into the political process Versus now drawing a harder line between groups that are willing to use violence that that now appear to be treated in a more law and order Framework with with security force deployments and and actual criminal trials potentially Versus maybe other groups that that might still find their way into the system. So I think you know Obviously, there's a lot to say about about all of those things I think a lot of attention in the in the international press has been granted to this issue of Salafist groups and what they represent in Tunisia and the The tensions on the political side between just conservative Islamists and secularists At the same time, I think maybe Tunisia's success as a democratic model depends more on these less media-friendly trickier longer-term issues of institutional reform and finding the correct processes for Resolving disputes which are inevitable in Tunisian society and politics. So I really look forward to hearing sort of Amin's thoughts and your thoughts tomorrow on What what can be done to advance those trickier sort of more subtle issues Seen reports lately that there is a fracturing of There's been a fracturing of the triocle which is the the The coalition that was built between the three parties with the majority of seats in Parliament which and the the triocle was divided between the president of the Assembly the Prime Minister and the presidential position. So There are emerging tensions there, which we can talk about But there's also been sort of a fracturing of existing parties and defections within parties that have constituent assembly members There have been new opposition coalitions that are forming or sort of in nascent formation A proliferation of parties the general trade union, which is a major political force in Tunisia It's called for a national unity conference, which is a potential challenge to the ruling party of a NAHDA Is this healthy democracy or is it is it? Is it cause for concern? Well, it's as long as we are discussing it looks like it's healthy democracy We have to keep in mind that Tunisia and I mean politics in Tunisia are going through Transition all of what's happening in Tunisia should not be assessed or Kind of analyzed through the regular political democratic well established framework of analysis it should be viewed as a transition process and All of what's happening Could be unique. I mean, it's not because Tunisian experience is unique But because every transition experience is unique. This is the main kind of approach to assessing transition the the Libyan experience is unique the Egyptian experience is unique the Timor Lester transition a few years ago was unique so each country has its own setting that needs to be addressed of course some Minimum standards should be applied, but the transition should be analyzed through kind of very well Kind of nation tailored or experienced held analysis having said this The Tunisian politics now look like a little bit shaky of this kind of alliances counter alliances especially at that very top level of the political decision-making process This is not to my opinion this approach to this part is an approach to transition is not the most healthy approach to transition Tunisia is now going through what I would call what people would call phase two of the transition Phase one has been from revolution till the election Phase two is from the election till the delivery of the Constitution this is so it's election phase and then now we are in the constitution phase during phase one and again assessed by People who try to see what how is Tunisia is going? This phase has been by all standards or by major standards a success It has achieved its goal of achieving free and fair elections I mean Positively seen by all of the monitors, but more importantly positively seen by all players No political parties stood up and said I do not trust the selection one or I contest the results. So This has been a success. It has been a success Because those who managed this transition phase were neutral We're not adopting a partisan approach and I'm not talking about political Approach these of course everyone has its political views and opinion and affiliation But these people were not partisan people. They were they did not try to manage Phase one of the transition through a partisan approach Phase two and this is kind of the setback of this phase. It's being run through a pure partisan approach the winners or I would say as Someone told me two days ago It's they're not winners, but they came first people who came first in the in the election formed the stroika According to no ideology There is no common ideology between Nahdha the winning party the Islamist conservative party and it's two allies CPR supposed to be conservative a Republican Party, but not conservative in terms of Islamic ideologies and Takedal, which is supposed to be somewhere central left. So these parties joined together in the stroika with no ideology ideological cement. It's just purely political partisan gains and They started running the phase two of the transition through this partisan approach Which seems to be not healthy for running transition period. We are in a constitutional process I mean some people might think or might say of course. They won the election. Of course, they need to apply their kind of Partisan approach to transition. I say we aren't we aren't in transition period We are in a constitutional period of transition We try to build a nation to build a nation for everyone the nation during this year or year and a half should be I Mean this process should be the most inclusive process where everyone identifies itself in this process everyone contributes It's we are not building the Tunisia of the winners The one winner the two or the three or the trika should be the Tunisia where everyone every Tunisian even the losers or the people who came Fifth or six whatever everyone sees itself in this Tunisia So we have to open up the process of this this construction process to the most possible Consulta consultation and to the most possible Consensus building we cannot reach an agreement with this partisan approach and that's why we see this kind of Cracks within the Troika because they don't have one ideology I mean neither might want to pass on some ideas according to its ideological background The catalyst with them, but they do not agree on this and more than the cracks within the Troika It creates a confrontation with the others and the others I'm not talking about just political parties because in this Transition period political affairs are not run only by political parties It's an issue of political parties of media of Labor force of civil society of lawyers all of these players in Tunisia in Tunisia going through a transition are Players so the those who are responsible for the decision-making. They should be Open to a consultation process with these party. They need to reach out Actually, they need to be proactive in reaching to these people They cannot they cannot say we are the winners and we need to apply our mandate This situation is creating as I said this confrontations confrontations multiple confrontations since the I think the the election we had I would say seven to eight major issues of confrontation hopefully not violent sometimes a little bit of violence, but mostly kind of confrontation to the point of people going to the street and I Mean, but not hopefully not violent But we had also many other issues of confrontation Why why is it so because these people are afraid to see Tunisia change according To one section of the order one segment of the population even though they won and I'm not questioning Any of their electoral legitimacy this Nahadah and the Troika won the election then they enjoy Maximum absolute electoral legitimacy, but when running Transition period it's not enough. It needs to be more than just electoral legitimacy. It needs some form of Consensus legitimacy. It cannot be run by just one one view at the expense of the others Yeah, I mean I was in Tunisia for the elections and I I was in a part of an official election Observer mission and I was in Silyana And there were people who would approach us to complain about an Ahda because they were very organized and very powerful in Getting out people to participate in the election process But then when I would ask them do you do then oppose the elections? Are you boycotting? Are you participating? They said no, no We're either they're not participating, but they accept the outcome and so there there was this consensus in the beginning And now you're saying that this consensus is at risk and I'm wondering how it is that Tunisia is going about to Try to save this consensus. Is it through activating civil society? Is it through the formation of technical? committees to do things like draft the electoral law or draft the transitional justice law I mean where where is the Basis for consensus building today in Tunisia. Well, I would say the strategy is Multi-fold it cannot be just one strategy First, I mean nada when and I'm saying I'm talking about now that because it's the winning The governing party if it was anyone else I would address all of my remarks to that political party but nada being the big kind of player in this Troika are trying to Actually, they thought that Being the winners they would pass on a lot of their ideologies just because they won But we are witnessing a huge mobilization from the others and again. It's not the only the political parties It's the opposition. It's lawyers civil society The the labor union, which is a big player in Tunisian reality media sometimes the judiciary who we might think that they are independent, but they are part of this process and of this let's say Public institutions like the commissions that they are being established we at the at the start of the Revolution or of the transition we had the establishment of three commissions and these commissions played the role of kind of the The main players of this process Commission for the political reform because the parliament has been dissolved So they played the role of a parliament but none elected Parliament and everything actually have been done has been done through consensus But we also had two commissions one to investigate Cases of corruption and embezzlement and the other one to investigate cases of human rights approach Human rights violation. So these commissions even though Supposedly they ceased after the election, but they had some leverage on the post election Political process. So all of these players Tried to influence the course of the events during this transition period and many of them Were not pushing for a particular agenda except the agenda of consultation There we are and they are they have been asking the governing The government to lower its partisan approach and to adopt more of a technical Approach whenever you increase the technicality of the of the decision-making process You would be more prone for consultation more prone for consensus building with hearing what the other has to say it does not It means that your decisions are not being Following the partisan approach. This is that survived today We are these technical Committees in the technical committee probably some of them lost of their some of their impact But the struggle the the pressure is still being kept by the by the this different groups and we This is very recent like few days ago. We are seeing Nada is being a little bit more open to dialogue a little bit We we cannot say now if it's genuinely openness of or if it's tactical move or we don't know yet But given the serious problems a repetition of serious problems Of course at the political level that we are witnessing but also some of the economic problems that are Directly coming from this lack of dialogue lack of consultation Nada is being a little bit Pushed to the corner. So is it genuinely trying to change or just a technical move? It would unfold in in the next days and as I have said things in Tunisia are Unfolding in I mean folding and unfolding and such a rapid pace that Thinks I mean you have two major events a week You need to be really on top of it to understand what's going on I want to ask you to briefly comment on the issue of security sector reform and transitional justice Because you know you are very much leading the effort on transition Justice and security sector reform is important very little has happened on it But yet there seems to be a relationship between the two. So what what is the vision on these? as in many other Experiences of transition there is a big focus on Reform of the security sector in Tunisia. It's even more relevant because The security sector has been the arm of a depression used by the former regime To oppress a population. It's not even It's not it's not only the opposition but entire groups of the of the society and even all of Tunisia So the issue of addressing or starting a reform process Address to the police is very very relevant at the turn of the revolution it seems that The police was a little bit open for this process Maybe because of the million other subjects that That the transition needs to address or because they get themselves again together Now they are a little bit more Kind of reluctant to this reform process If a reform process of the of the police cannot happen out of nothing just by a political decision best practices from other countries show have shown that Transitional justice in new is one of the best mechanism that would trigger Institutional reform of course, but most importantly police reform police reform is always a sensitive issue because police They by definition are the only group who have the right of right to use force if This police is somehow pushed into a corner. They will they will use force Illegally they can turn I mean we've seen experiences in in Georgia in some other central country a central European countries where pushed into the corner or or kind of Excluded from the reform process completely excluded the police would turn to be the even worst guys So addressing police reform in Tunisia needs to be free needs to be kind of Continuous effort, but needs to be addressed through a transitional justice process Because a transitional justice process which is due to start in Tunisia Probably by the fall or or winter would have enough legitimacy To open up to ask the police to open up it would give the legitimacy to of course to the Transition justice process itself, but also to the decision-makers to address the police the right way without any abuse of Cleaning the the security sector and without any Linealcy or and leniency in in security reform always has the Kind of the logic of parties and games political parties usually give up on some of the Security reform to have the security on their side. So we need a an independent process a genuine process that is transition justice that would address it but it would probably go beyond transition justice and It's a workshop. I would say for the next ten years in Tunisia Okay tomorrow turning it over to you You've obviously then sort of following broadly the transitions in the different countries of the region so To what extent can we say that Tunisia is a test case for democratic transitions given these problems You know the lack of consultation the Partisan politics that are emerging and the slow reforms that are happening Yeah, well Let me start by saying how delighted I am to see a standing room only crowd on the Friday before July 4th to to discuss Tunisia and I think it is really a testament to New America Foundation and Poma that they're continuing to to give attention to the Tunisian transition And certainly there's a perception I think in Washington that Tunisia is the golden child And there are a lot of problem children and so, you know, maybe Tunisia doesn't need that much attention, but I you know I I think that you've heard some of the complications and challenges today But I actually don't think that any of those complications or challenges are Any worse than we've seen in some other transitions around the world and I think you know I mean as someone who has has studied transitions in Other regions of the world knows this and and knows that these are challenges that are somewhat inevitable And they are overcomeable with goodwill with political will and this is the key You can't remove politics from the rulemaking phase of a political transition It's impossible because the rules that you're setting inevitably are gonna advantage Some groups over others But what allows you to proceed with that rulemaking process and and do it in a more in a way That's more inclusive in its effects is uncertainty about what the impact of the rules will be over time right because Inevitably people who win elections want to secure their gains and keep them into the future And they're gonna try and game the system and the rulemaking to advantage them But if they're smart and they want to be they want to win elections long into the future And they want to be influential. They have to think about what rules would they like if they lost And that I think is the challenge that is facing the three parties in the ruling coalition today Is that they're thinking more about the rules that advantage them in the majority? And they're not thinking about what rules would they like to live under if they find themselves one day in the minority But I think you know, so you need You need to think about rules that will benefit you regardless of what percentage of the vote you take in any given election And that will drive you to be more consultative and inclusive not because you're Magnanimous and not because you believe in consensus But because you're self-interested and I think that if you look at transitions even look at you know The American Constitution writing process which was intensely partisan and vicious You have to have that self-interested political Imperative driving people toward compromise actually I think what has led the Tunisian transition Certainly if you compare it to other states in the region that that underwent change In in their politics last year What what it has allowed the Tunisian transition to proceed in a relatively smoother manner in a way that that seems to To bode well is a couple of things that that I would point to first is is very simple Which is that the military although it played a crucial role in getting Ben Ali out of the country Then withdrew itself from the political sphere and it said to the political actors in Tunisian society You guys are going to have to work this out on your own We're not getting involved and that of course stands in very great contrast to another country in North Africa I Think there's another element though that doesn't get a lot of attention and that helps explain both the initial Success of the Ben Ashur Commission and the first year of the transition and also some of the challenges that we're seeing now And that's that a number of the political factions that are active in Tunisian politics today When they were in opposition when they were in exile when they were under repression under Ben Ali They were talking to one another outside the country And you know beginning in I think 2002 or so there were a series of meetings that included not day included some of the leftist opposition parties a Number of declarations were issued from those meetings And it was an opportunity for these groups coming from very different ideological perspectives to Forage agreement on some very basic principles about Democratic politics and about the role of religion in politics And that allowed them when they suddenly found themselves with an opportunity to play a role in Tunisia To begin from at least a little bit of a shared of shared premises now The challenge that we have today is that there are new political actors who have emerged in Tunisia Since the revolution who were not part of that process who didn't have that experience of Engagement of dialogue and of compromise before the revolution And they also weren't part of the process in the Ben Ashur Commission Remember the Ben Ashur Commission started out smaller and had to become more inclusive But there are those and those in Tunisian politics now who were not represented in the Ben Ashur Commission and so the challenge is one of Engaging these emerging actors in a process of dialogue as Amin said that will help all of them Forge at least a minimal understanding on the rules of the game the other big challenge Which we haven't talked about quite so much. I think is the economy and I And I think here, too There were some initial assumptions about what the impact of the political transition would be on Tunisia's economy There were assumptions about how quickly the Tunisian economy could recover and those assumptions were premised on political stability emerging relatively quickly and so Initially when I was talking to business people or people who were coming into the transitional government about the economic situation They said we've got 12 to 18 months of crisis and then we'll start to see growth again, and it'll be okay well First off it turns out that the that the developmental disparities in Tunisia were much greater than people knew Because the Ben Ali government was not very honest or forthcoming in its economic statistics So actually in many parts of the country the situation was worse than anyone knew At the at the central policy level and then secondly Mostly I think because of the conflict in Libya Tunisia's economy did not recover nearly as quickly as people had hoped the the instability on the border the refugee flows into Tunisia and The drag on tourism all of those things kind of held the Tunisian economy back and so It it I think demands a greater response from the international community now to keep Tunisia's economy Above water basically while this political transition continues to go forward. Unfortunately Europe which should be playing a significant role here is facing economic problems of its own And so they're not able to be nearly as forthcoming So I think some of the assumptions that people had at the outset of the Tunisian transition have proven Inacurate and we all need to adjust strategy now Has the US approach to Tunisia changed evolved over the past 18 months? I think so. I mean, you know, I'll speak to my own experience, which is that The initial wave look we went from a situation where we had two million dollars in bilateral Assistance Economic assistance in Tunisia. We had a program of military assistance that was mainly focused on border security and counterterrorism But economic assistance there was almost nothing our the US Relationship with the Ben Ali government was very difficult the US Embassy in Tunis was extremely constrained In fact the first time I mean was in January 2010 in Tunis when you know He he and and his colleagues in The coackeby Center were one of a very small number of organizations that were able to operate as NGOs working on human rights and democracy in Tunisia and the embassy couldn't Couldn't meet with people without those people being under intense pressure and surveillance US Embassy officers couldn't even go on to a university campus without the explicit permission of the Minister of Higher Education And so we had to go from that situation Almost overnight into, you know, what are all the ways that we can mobilize assistance? Now I think we managed to do a lot Quickly, but as I said the scope of the need turned out to be greater Then then we knew so the first wave of assistance was about $26 million from MEPI the Middle East Partnership initiative that I supervised and a few million dollars from the Office of Transition initiatives that was focused almost entirely but not a hundred percent on political Support for the elections process and for civil society working on transitional justice working on Corruption issues working with the the Commission's There was some component there of economic assistance as well But it wasn't really until the fall of last year that major economic assistance was able to come online and It's been you know, and it's and so that over the last six to nine months I think has built up so if you look at the overall US package to Tunisia since the revolution It's actually a hundred and ninety million dollars. It's not a Small amount of money by any means for a country of ten million people But it's been slow to ramp up and so the impact on the ground I think is going to be slow to build and I and I and most importantly I think the impact that's being targeted now, which is budget support for the Tunisian government and And efforts to create jobs Those two things take time Okay, before we open up for questions, I'm going to let the panelists Respond to each other if you have any comments or questions. I guess I have a comment in question at the The hundred and ninety million figure in transitional assistance doesn't include this hundred million dollar cash transfer that in terms of targeting what you're talking about like immediate economic assistance that is fungible and that Helps the government pay its bills and remain above water is actually probably what Tunisian elites wanted, you know Right a year ago, but but better better now than than never obviously. I wonder I Wonder at two things I guess what you see the with your knowledge of the office of transitional assistance What you see the future of that kind of support being in Tunisia Do you think that there's appetite or potential for a future US role that includes that kind of direct budget support? Or was this really a one-off thing and what are the implications either way, but second of all if you think that there's That there are implications from this week's More clear suggestions that the central bank governor is going to be pushed out of his position For that kind of aid and does that undermine donor confidence in direct budget support to the Tunisian government? Well, you know, I think one of the challenges for the United States and other Governments that want to help or even multilateral institutions that want to provide support is that there's no way to provide Economic assistance in these circumstances that isn't politically sensitive, right? I mean and I would love to hear from I mean what the what the perceptions are the debates are over Accepting internationally particularly from the United States, but it's it's always a sensitive issue and so you know You want to be responsive to The consensus on the ground, but sometimes there isn't a clear consensus on the ground even from within a government about what kind Of help is most important and and you know, I think that that's a good example So that's that's one aspect the other aspect is here at home Of course, and this is an issue that POMED pays particular attention to Which is the ability of the United States in its current economic Circumstances in its current political environment to commit resources to invest in Democracy and democratic transition in the Middle East because we know from the history of democratic transitions around the world that without economic Delivery to citizens democracies have a very hard time making it through that transitional period It's absolutely essential if we want these transition to succeed that we make the investment But to be perfectly honest as an official In as severely a budget constrained environment as we face in this country with our economy where it is and With the politics of foreign aid the way it is I often found felt like I was trying to gather resources by you know Going under the couch cushions and finding the spare change and I think you know at least in the initial phase That's that is what we were doing and we managed to come up with a good deal of spare change But that's not going to sustain us over the longer term So, you know President Obama proposed a 770 million dollar Middle East Incentive fund in the FY 13 budget I don't know if the FY 13 budget will ever be fully considered by Congress in an election year But that's the kind of investment that I think we're talking about if we're serious about helping these countries succeed I mean, I know you've been here in Washington for a week and you know what us assistance is not always a neutral endeavor And particularly in the area of democracy promotion Are you sending any messages around exactly where to direct resources actually? The US let's say decision-makers are looking to Tunisia as you as you said as the kind of a Very good example in the Middle East My message was like Yes, we are in the relative terms may be doing a little bit better than our neighbors Libya Syria in the near future Yemen But this should not make us Just be very much confident and say that's it Tunisia made it and we just will Support it financially. That's it. I mean just provide some resources much needed resources and About the efficiency of resources Kind of pure question They will take it up and people in transition would accept anything. I mean if you propose to support fishing they will take it The idea or the challenge of the of the US supporting this This trans these transitions and I'll talk about Tunisia is to try To anchor this support or this even financial support to norms and standards of human rights and democracy We the US of course cannot intervene into the content of of the transition should we have Sharia or not have sharia in our legislation sure. I mean different sensitive issues and nation kind of Issues, but the US can Anchor this support to some milestones about human rights and democracy The US can say yes, we are supporting Tunisian transition, but we cannot support a transition that Represses media that represses women rights that Goes beyond any form of consultation that puts I don't know some pressure on minorities. It cannot happen this way This is the easiest way to my opinion for the decision-makers in the US to address this support and Probably this is the the kind of decision that decision-makers need to to make when looking into Tunisia specific not Tunisia as part of the Arab region going through a process of reform but the Prospect of leveraging aid is is a very difficult question and deserves its own Owns panel So I'll open it now to questions from the audience Hey, thank you very much for hosting this panel Jennifer Quigley Jones from National Security Network I just wanted to ask whether it didn't really touch on private investment Tunisia has been holding business fairs like they're going out of fashion. I mean it's begging begging for European investment It's being given support from the World Bank from Europe from Qatar from the US I was wondering whether you thought Tunisia is going to get the amount of private investment It needs and which source you think that's going to come from and secondly I was wondering whether you thought this need for international economic support represented a wider pattern for the Arab uprising nations Let's take a few questions and then have a panelist answer in the back. Yeah You just so Jamal but type Labor activist and the blogger from Tunisia first of all, I appreciate a lot the slogan of Amin which is we want we don't want Tunisia of the winners because Actually and not the ruling party answer to critics of the opposition Be quiet. You are the winners. You are the Zero point percent. Can you think that winning the election? It's a green light to do what they want so my question is concerning The human rights investigation My question is how could the government which Don't respect respect the minimal principles of human rights investigate in a human rights relation Especially after you know that the injury of the revolution was beaten inside of the human rights ministry local and Few days ago Tunisia give the ex-premier minister of Gaddafi to a country Without conditions for a fair trial Despite the opposition of amnesty and of all international human rights organization. Thank you. Thank you Okay, and then to the front This gentleman here Mike Hager several of the Commentators referred to the need for consensus building and I wonder if there's been get any consideration to the Process of mediation having a neutral mediator Neutral mediator of who and where among among the Whether there are cracks in the coalition where there are political parties at odds Or where there are technical parties that have differences Whether a neutral mediator could be effective in closing those gaps and building a consensus Here in the front. We are and can you state your affiliation if you have one? Yeah, sure Hello, my name is kitty and I'm from the Green Party of Sweden and Well recently a couple of months ago a documentary was released about the Youths role in the Arabic and spring and especially in the Tunisian Revolution and One of the leading figures of the youth movement in Tunisia Said that the biggest Change in Tunisia after the revolution was the mental change that the fact that people were actually starting to discuss politics and actually had the courage to hope for for a brighter future and I was wondering what has happened to the optimism in Tunisia and has yes very big one And has the in the public's engagement in politics also changed. Thank you. Okay We'll do a second round of questions, but we'll answer these I mean do you want to start off with the This last one and the human rights Yes question Can I just say one thing which is it I mean is too modest to say this himself, but Long before the revolution I mean and his colleagues were working with young people in Tunisia to generate that sense that of efficacy and empowerment and Optimism and I I think that he deserves at least some of the credit for helping build that cadre of young Tunisians who? Not only were broke the barrier of fear, but knew that they could do something positive Thank you. Thank you Tamara. Actually, maybe we helped these some of these youth to become Kind of active in public affairs But we certainly have not trained Boaz easy who set himself on fire or any of the groups The spontaneous groups the youth who took a role in the industry I mean it was really spontaneous most of these people never interacted with any NGO with any International partner Having said this many youth took part of this Of this kind of dynamic that led to the revolution and the post revolution dynamic Soon after not soon a few months after there has been this kind of fatigue people Were a little bit deceived youth are being our By definition those who are Most prone to deception. They're very hyper and very deceptive This is kind of for the psychological pattern, but again, this is not odd to Countries going through a revolution you have always this first wave of the most committed of the activists who trigger all of the hard like first step Steps of the revolution then you have a second curve of Politicians or new politicians who take the lead and when they take the lead they kind of Go over this commitment and engagement of youth. So yes, there has been some kind of Kind of deception some people might Returns this to not their political party winning the election But to my opinion, it's just the way it is it happened in many other countries the question about the The human You said that you part of the work you're doing now in your center is to help build capacity of youth of citizens to engage with government To to see through the process of building accountable Institutions, how do you how do you keep what? How do you energize people? How do you organize them? Well, first the challenge was to find people we were training people youth and kind of people in their early years of their Careers and we were finding hard time finding people because people would not engage in any form of Public affairs or reform oriented public affairs. It's too dangerous to to risky They just especially in Tunisia like in Syria Lebanon some of these countries who do not be People do not want to interfere more youth than adults After the revolution the focus or there has been a huge shift. I mean millions of people trying to To to have a say and to have a role in this transition process but our strategy started to to look into Struct a little bit more structured groups now. It's time of building. Yes Nation building but also institution building. We saw a huge number of NGOs Most of them having the word citizenship in it because they think that citizenship is what it's the missing link During this the repression year years So they started to form group we started to invest in these groups as civil society groups We try to endow them with the expertise with the knowledge with the support to carry on their role as Reformers civil society reformers or I mean different things those who are calling from for transparency for accountability for inclusiveness we try to invest in these groups to become an Institutional kind of framework helping this process at the local level, of course Okay, yeah, and the human rights. Yes, that's a challenge. It is a challenge How would you trust a government that is that is supposed to come from a human rights dynamic or a human rights? protection dynamic and this government yet is Violating some of the other rights some I must say I must it's not a government that is Oppressing all of the human rights That we are trying to install But human rights should not be the protection of a human rights or respect of human rights should not be first given to To government and should not be given just as part of a good will Cannot accept the government saying yes, we are supportive of human rights. You need to create checks and balances to ensure that these human rights are being respected so far we are in this Building process Institutional building process where we do not have the appropriate mechanisms that would Protect these human rights and hold the violators accountable We have some commissions, but we call lacking teeth. We have some institutions But this is part of the dynamic of institutional building You Know I think there are a few challenges for Tunisia and attracting private sector investment versus that it's small by itself It's a small market and so If Tunisia truly wants to benefit from international investment It needs to make itself the anchor or hub of a broader Maghreb market And there are a lot of political as well as Economic and technical challenges to doing that I do think though that the will amongst the Maghreb countries is Greater today To to move in that direction that it has been in the time that I've been watching these issues And so I think that this is this is a moment to seize and I think that the Western governments actually can play a role in incentivizing and facilitating the creation of this market and Tunisia because it has some good infrastructure Both physical and regulatory can play a good hub role another Element here is is Libya You know, it's very hard to attract private sector investment when you have a civil war going on on one side of your country Now that Libya is beginning to rebuild There is the potential for Tunisia to become an anchor for companies that want to move into Libya Or that are doing work in Libya to come in and out A trans shipment point, etc. But in order for that to work Tunisian-Libyan relations have to be strong and solid And I think that you could look at this extradition decision part at least partly in that light That was the extradition of the prime former prime minister of Libya that has caused A lot of turmoil inside the country Do you About about the moderation it looks like in Tunisia we grew let's say insensitive of this practice of moderation people I mean politicians or decision-makers have not This kind of political will to accept moderation Mediation and mediation or yeah mediation of at the political level We are seeing some very Very new kind of initiatives very very small or very new not yet ready to be assessed of this mediation The labor union has very lately like a week ago launched an initiative of media mediation at the political level that apparently had kind of positive Appreciation from the government so we'll see if this is something that would work in the near future and it might become Kind of a practice that would help us go beyond our technical political problems I don't have much to add to what's been said. I think on the point of youth optimism I think I mean right even even those of us who aren't in tune is very often We can feel that you know just from talking to people there That there's been this kind of disappointment in in in some youth circles on the other hand I would just add that that can be a more constructive and dynamic Sentiment if channeled properly and if sort of youth groups organize and decide what exactly they're Disappointed in and what they would rather see from their government that can be actually a very constructive sentiment Versus optimism, which is you know, oh, we've accomplished everything. I think you know in January mid January 2011 There was this sense of like okay, the job is over, you know We can all go home and in fact it might be a very positive thing if if those groups are able to channel that that sense of Exclusion or if people not responding to their needs or demands into into a more productive sort of youth movement or civil society Groups or through initiatives that like the ones that I mean is involved in We don't want anyone to be Disappointment We can't there's a problem with the mic Try now Hi, there's your two making from says a foundation. Actually, I have two questions. One is about economics. Do you know? Before the for the French can ask Questions as well. Yeah Before the are awakening there was a French dominance in Tunisian economy and now It is changing I see as I see how do you see it? Is there any? possibility of a competition from the international as an international perspective in the Tunisian economy and my second question is actually I'm a turkish citizen and in my country were usually talking about turkish model in the Middle Eastern countries and How do you see about? Tunisian democratic institutions establishing to the Tunisian democratic institutions Turkey can be a model and also Yeah, but I Yes, mr. I talked about US in terms of human rights and The for the judicial system and I think the Turkish Turkish model Turkey can be a model in terms of the experiencing democracy with the all questions and all Problems, but it's we cannot ignore that it's growing but Even if the problems have the point. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you here Another anxious hand I'm Tom rise and I write about internet freedom here at New America Foundation You mentioned a lot about French Economic competition the Turkish model Tomorrow made some great points about politicians coordinating while in exile I was wondering if you had heard anything about new political science or new political thought after There's been so much going on in the Arab world nations lately In the 1960s there was the whole pan-Arabist movement where on the previous generation talked about The Middle East getting together and kind of being independent from the West and in the newest generation that seems to have Focused more on individual countries. There's not really as much of the pan-Arabist spirit But do you see any new political thoughts or? Science developing where there are people talking about how there's so much going on in the Middle East right now Right, so has the revolution produced a new political consciousness perhaps? Philosophy okay to the front here To this woman here and Hi Amy from Sweden, I was just wondering talk about this financial support What what are the What are the goals from the US side like supporting? Tunisia and what other financial talk about private investment But what about like Europe and which countries can else do you think are supposed to help? Can you hand the mic back to the person behind you, please? Yeah And then I'm gonna go back to the panel Economist question in a political way because this is a political panel and we're getting a lot of Good Said and who are you? He said recently if you don't handle the economic issue We'll have another revolution with the revolution. That's that that's the top problem right now So another economics question for you politically oriented I Her none did so to the Peruvian economist had one of the best analysis I've seen of the informal sector was easy Self-immolated, but then another 35 self-immolated in the following 59 days mostly Algerian Tunisian And and when he looked at the commonalities there, they were almost all informal economic sector actors Who were tired of being humiliated and dealing with red tape? That hasn't really been addressed and most of what we're talking about and to make matters worse In the local level in Tunisia, you're having power grabs where I mean in a quite nasty way He's sort of new forces are coming in and taking over I mean putting a slight plan violence for a minute putting aside The Diplomacea more and what they're doing you have at the local level serious political problems that You know Are at this nexus between politics and economics and we're gonna need some rural Tunisian political Advances here not just Tunisos centric. Yeah advances. That's my question. That's a good one. Okay Shall we start with No, no, no Now you feel bad because I feel in the middle of a battle now. I mean is it just briefly? Okay? Well, it is a very brief question. I'm Taylor Kerry. I'm a student come from across the Atlantic I just wondered we've had an opportunity to hear a few of us in this group John McCain talk about Syria And one of the pressing concerns about prospective engagement is to find success What do you mean by getting more involved and what's it going to end up in so if I know it's a broad question? But very Concisely, you might all be able to comment on what is success in Tunisia. Thanks Yeah How do we think about success and bill is very good point about the informal sector or the gray economy more broadly? I think that is that is an important point. So let me start with that I think in Tunisia, but also in other Arab countries in Egypt. It's a huge issue You have people working in the informal sector. In other words, these are businesses that aren't strictly legal You also have people who may have legal Right to do business or or have legal entities, but they're not banked They're not part of the banking system So they don't have access to credit both of these things are tremendous bars to economic growth And this is what De Soto has spent many years on How do you capture this economic activity and use it to the benefit of the whole society? and And this is a huge issue, but I guess what I would say bill is that it's It's part of a bigger problem Which is that the regulatory infrastructure in Tunisia and in other countries in the Arab world is simply not Developed in such a way as to encourage that kind of entrepreneurial private sector activity Okay, and so until you have wholesale regulatory reform Dealing with the private sector dealing with the banking industry. You're not going to be able to capture that activity and and and tax it or grow it or or invest in it or do anything else with it now You know, this is actually something that we thought about very early on in terms of the US government response And you know this you were with us We invested in the financial services volunteer corps to work with the banks and the US Commerce Department to provide technical assistance to the Tunisian government and As the Millennium Challenge Corporation starts to get its work in Tunisia underway This is going to be a major focus for them as well, but I just want to make the point This is one aspect of a broader regulatory reform challenge so Does decentralization play into it at all or it can yes it absolutely can I don't think it's necessary, but and Decentralization can help in terms of giving people a greater sense of ownership and also greater accountability than centralized decision-making on the other hand Bill is identifying a phenomenon of sort of local elites setting themselves up in sort of mayor daily style political operations and Decentralization can have the perverse effect of empowering those people if it's not done right and I'm sorry young man I was going to address your question success. What success right? Thank you Look bottom line Consolidated democratic transition occurs when you have an election that transfers power to another party the one that's not in power So at the end of a transition process That's what you should see if everything is successful between where Tunisia has as I mean said achieve the first phase of Democratic transition they have had one set of elections that has put into place a body that's exercising executive and legislative authority that is elected and accountable And but they have a long long way to go before they get to that end state and I would expect that to take you know Maybe a decade I'm a bit lost in the scope of these questions I realize now we should have held off on the That's beyond my comfort zone, but I Guess I would pick out too that I think are linked which are the question about the transition between maybe at least perceived French dominance in economically to some degree politically in Tunisia and Whatever Tunisia is moving more toward today, which I think is Not entirely to break with that past But to I think the way that the Tunisian government would put it which is to balance those longer term ties and and what they Understand is a needed source of investment and economic Trade and so forth with newer outreach toward the Arab world toward Turkey toward Africa to some you know Sub-Saharan Africa to some degree at least in terms of lip service and I think that that is linked in some ways to this question about the new New or emerging political philosophies Because I think that if you asked that question to someone in Natha, they would say We are the new emerging political philosophy and and look around us You know, we're the ones who are who are the model for everything that's happening from Morocco to To Egypt and and who knows they they were probably predicted that something like that will emerge in Syria You know, I don't know and they would perhaps define that themselves as a sort of an Islamists Refer, you know a party with an Islamist references how they refer to it But but that fundamentally situates itself inside a secular a civil state That it they they probably you know that is not a secular state But that is a civil state where the state keeps its hands off of religious practice But where nonetheless the party has sort of a reference to maybe you know some sort of Islamic values I mean it becomes very difficult to define once you sort of start to parse the devil in the details But but but I think that that's the question is is that a new model is it an old model that's You know the way that maybe some Tunisian secularists who are suspicious of Natha would say no no this isn't new This is something that we've seen many times before in different guises and it seeks ultimately to dominate the Tunisian state and society And it doesn't ultimately have Democratic goals, so I think that's the question You know are we seeing sort of a new type of government and a new type of political success story? And to what degree does the experience of being in power change the way that that? Political philosophy is thought and and exercised in practice And I think that's really sort of one of the great stakes of the the Tunisian political transition and the Tunisian story And then the other question is how will other countries look on Tunisian things Tunisian example I mean obviously Tunisia has been very influential in the last year and a half at the same time you have you know traditionally more influential countries like Egypt and Syria, so even if You're able to see a sort of stable You know some kind of it widely accepted regime emerge in in Tunisia to what extent will others be able to continue to refer to that and and and to what extent will other Civic populations see Tunisia as a legitimate, you know way of expressing themselves I'll go back to the question of this tricky link between economics and politics Probably at the end of each day no one in Tunisia would eat election or would drink Constitution I mean it remains a concern for the high kind of end of the High-end segment of the society trying to address all political issues saying that your economic issues are Linked to the political decision-taking that's true, but for the people at large it's economic that matters and It's probably why the US support and other countries support is Address to the economic issues because we've seen many many countries in transition that went through transition especially it's Eastern Europe where people if the second year stand start to regret communism or start to regret socialism and usually they vote for the new version of The communist regime like renewed of course not a communist party But something of it like or or same people usually same people with different name or social socialist party Regaining power at the second election In Tunisia it might take that the the shape of The remnant of the old regime Renew themselves and come into it might be this is Something that would happen so economic aspect would remain no not remain it is the most important thing for the 9.6 million Tunisians just leaving 200 or 300,000 who are concerned about economics if no Innovative approaches are adopted for this economic kind of a shaky situation We might see some serious impact on the political dynamic So no government can afford to say Let's let's say let's start with the politics and then we'll worry about economics It needs to go hand-in-hand if not more into economic aspect politicians of Of the I mean of this phase and also of the previous phase have not Addressed the economic issue properly and this is part of the Disillusion or the disappointment from the youth youth the main concern of youth is unemployment They do not see they say we triggered this revolution and We are still unemployed so where to go so this is the sensitivity the the Turkish model It is a Well-functioning model, but it's functioning now and what I mean now. It's an Islamic party running Or kind of being in power in it in a secular state You reached this in Turkey after 90 years of Trying to cement this secularism Secularism came before Islamist party you have made in Turkey genuinely nationally your system of checks and balance where the military is is playing a big role, but at the expense, I mean not the expense after a nine decades of kind of a of Shaping and reshaping this model with a lot of coups a lot of problems But now it's a functioning thing in Tunisia or in the Arab region We cannot jump jump into this very last segment of the experience Secular's running a country that has more less Sorry Islamist running country of secular tradition. We don't have a secular tradition yet We don't have it's not even a tradition We don't have the checks and balance the institutional framework that would allow us to say even if we have Islamist We would not worry about our state about our bill our nation building or our society What time is it? We have five minutes. Okay, I'm gonna just take two questions here in the front and Then in the back Yeah, after you quickly if you can And I wanted to ask what was the situation with women's rights before and What changed after the revolution? Okay, and the second question is in the back Thank you, my question is about civic education in Tunisia. I think I mean was was very right to bring up that there's sort of Dozens if not hundreds of NGOs in Tunisia that have the word citizenship in their name they're all working very hard on Civic education and sort of teaching people the role of the citizen in a democracy But these are all very small They generally lack funding and they're relatively inexperienced themselves in civic education. So I'm wondering if anyone on the panel Would discuss it all if there's sort of a centralized comprehensive civic education effort being designed by the government or if you're aware of any other efforts Any similar efforts at civic education that were conducted in other transitional societies. Thank you. Let's start with that question Anyone My answer unfortunately would be a little bit negative is that We have a huge number of workshops open in Tunisia right now and probably in this kind of Intense environment the issue of civic education is rated very low at the level of the government it remains just the kind of The the kind of subject that needs to be addressed by civil society a civil society that is as you Rightly stated is weak on civil education civic education So it would be a process of learning by doing but we have we are already seeing some of of the Let's say positive aspects of it. I'll give you just one example of A Election monitoring we've never had almost no election. I mean let alone election monitoring. So at the election of October we had five groups monitoring the election and Five major groups. I'm not talking about National civil society coalitions A Statistic put the numbers at around 11,000 observer while we have We while we had I think 8,500 Voting stations so we had more observers than the stations them themselves because people are very much committed sometimes Commitment is very important to be best if it's Combined with with some expertise and the resources and we hope it would start a little by little And the issue of women rights by Many standards or according to reports Tunisian women enjoy Great deal of rights compared to two countries of the region. I'm not saying it's perfect rights It's quite fair a lot needs to be done, but compared to other sets It is I mean women women's and women Tunisia can be happy The thing is now we are seeing a conservative party ruling the country and conservative party unfortunately one of the first target is Trying to address women issues. They have not done it so far kind of directly So far I say maybe later on but but because of this negative dynamic of Confrontal of bullying sometimes women now are the according to statistics women of the age 2040 are though the category of the society who are most fearful of under about the rights because they see that They'll be the first target of a social change a core. I mean triggered by a conservative party Islamist conservative party. So we have gains for women and hopefully they'll not be kind of trimmed by the political party in power now, which is not Okay So I'm gonna close the panel. I Didn't Inform the panelists before but I'm gonna ask you each to tell us For us to continue to view Tunisia as a successful transitional model for the region. What is a Key benchmark that we should pay attention to going forward Tomorrow well, I guess going back to some of what we were discussing at the beginning of the panel I think a key marker is the ability It is the ability of political actors to compromise Toleration as a democratic value isn't just about minorities or women or whatever It's about tolerating different political views different political philosophies and Finding a way to work with them in establishing the rules of the system I always feel strange coming from the United States and talking about sort of Highly civil political discourse Especially sitting on the legislative branch side, but And and that's a very healthy thing don't get me wrong But no, I think I think it's hard to identify a single benchmark I mean, there's more like a constellation of benchmarks that have to do with individual freedoms and political freedoms and Sort of as as tomorrow said like consensus in moving forward, but I think one very concrete thing I mean, it's kind of the most obvious is just do we have a constitution, you know In the next year do we have new elections the terms of which and the management of which are broadly agreed upon in society? And do ordinary Tunisians feel that they had input into both of those things? I mean do they feel that they had input into the Constitution drafting process which is Apparently going to move forward without a referendum for example So that's doubly important to have sort of civic education around the content of the draft and to have people feel that they were able to Express their preferences and then also given the sort of lack of institutional framework at this point for the electoral system You know, what do those elections look like? What is the framework because unlike the last elections this electoral law and this electoral institution or these electoral institutions are likely to endure In a best-case scenario sort of much longer than than the ones that were constructed for the October elections So many benchmark Actually, it's rather kind of comprehensive. I think that the best benchmark would be a And like an agreement a consensus or consultative agreement about all Tunisians on milestones and meeting these milestones That would be the best assessment of the transition process Tunisians sit together talk discuss fight to whatever to agree on benchmarks on milestones election dates Constitution transitional justice all of these agree on on the content Among themselves through an inclusive process Consultative process and then meet these milestones meet these dates and meet whatever agreement has been has been said Not an easy thing, but it is not inspiration. So thanks everyone for coming out on this very hot day And thanks to the panelists for a very interesting discussion