By Naim Ameur,
Senior Manager, Prime Ministry of Tunisia
EGF Affiliated Expert on Maghreb politics

Tunisia embarks upon the process of transition to democracy

It is now a well established fact amongst both the general public as well as the specialist of Middle Eastern politics that Tunisia under the almost-quarter century long rule of former President, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, was managed by a highly restrictive and rather authoritarian political system. The system empowered key pro-regime political instruments such as the Constitutional Democratic Rally simultaneously to ensuring that opposition political parties remained largely powerless or even being loyal to the regime. Other regime opponents, such as Tunisia’s Islamists, found themselves in exile and for the most part expelled from the country. While this is not surprising, given the dearth of democratic political culture in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), this likewise ensured that the country remained a “political wasteland” under its former president, who created what some local scholars now refer to as “political desertification”. READ MORE

• July 11, 2011

The EBRD is boosting its support to the financial sector in the Kyrgyz Republic with a 270 million Kyrgyz som loan (US$ 6 million equivalent) to Bai Tushum and Partners, one of the country’s leading non-bank microfinance institutions, to provide more affordable som loans to small businesses.

• July 9, 2011

Mongolia has announced the winners of a long-fought contest to develop part of Tavan Tolgoi, one of the largest coking coal deposits in the world.

• July 9, 2011

The United States will look to enhance the scope of counter-terrorism cooperation with India during the second US-India Strategic Dialogue to be held in New Delhi in the third week of July.

• July 9, 2011

Kyiv and Chisinau will coordinate their efforts on joining the European Union. Such an agreement was reached at a meeting between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kostiantyn Hryshchenko and Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Iurie Leanca, which was held during the Ukrainian minister's visit to Moldova.

• July 8, 2011

The proposed merger of the electricity assets of state-run Russian gas giant Gazprom and the privately owned Renova Group is likely to face a stern regulatory challenge as the deal would effectively roll back recent efforts to privatise the country's electricity generation sector.

• July 8, 2011

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov and his visiting Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu signed on July 7 2011 a declaration pledging co-operation between the two countries’ governments in a wide range of areas.

• July 7, 2011

A major battle between Slovakia’s environmentalists and the government is emerging as Greenpeace charges that the country’s recently completed nuclear power plant at Mochovce in Nitra has in fact violated the public’s rights.

• July 6, 2011