Exclusionary and Non-Consensual Transitions Versus Inclusive and Consensual Democratizations: The Cases of Egypt and Tunisia

Huntington (1991: 16–26) included the Central and Eastern Europe's transitions into the third wave of democratization. However, we believe it more appropriate to point out that these post-communist transitions opened up a fourth wave of democratization that is distinct from the one which shook southern Europe and Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s (Doorenspleet, 2005; Landman, 2008; McFaul, 2011; Priego, 2011). Therefore, from our point of view, the recent dynamics of change in North Africa and the Arab Middle East should be considered as the fifth wave of political change.

Revolutionary transitions have previously been classified as transitions by rupture (Linz, 1990: 18), replacement (Huntington, 1991: 109), or regime defeat (Mainwaring, 1992: 294). In Tunis, President Ben Ali fled the country on January 14, 2011, and was exiled in the Saudi city of Yidda. In Egypt, raïs Hosni Mubarak resigned from power on February 11, 2011, in the face of the persistence of protesters who had been demanding his resignation since January 25. However, Skocpol (1979: 32), in a classic study, demonstrated that citizens' disaffection with the regime is not only necessary for the downfall authoritarian regimes, but that what is truly important is that the State can maintain the means of coercion in order to avoid a revolution. In the cases of Tunisia and Egypt, what marked the success of the popular revolutions was the decision of the Army not to intervene against the protesters.

This type of regime is characterized by a hegemonic or an ultra-dominant party: the Constitutional Democratic Rally (CDR) in Tunisia and the National Democratic Party (NDP) in Egypt. With substantial hurdles in the way of the opposition forces, the interaction of parties in the political system was allowed, although rotation in power was not possible because of the hegemonic political force. Elections were not competitive, and they were used as a mechanism to form parliamentary majorities to support government. However, Parliament was not a strong and autonomous institution. Furthermore, political rights and civil liberties were restricted and were under continuous threat from those in power.

If there is a combination of these two aspects—political actors without responsibility and restricted public freedoms—then we should not use the term defective democracy. This should be considered an authoritarian regime.

In June 2013, clashes broke out between supporters and detractors of the president. The military gave an ultimatum calling for an end to the violence within 48 hours. In the end, the Army intervened to depose Morsi.

In March 2011, the Tunisian Court of First Instance, at the request of the Interior Ministry, abolished the CDR, which had been suspended by the Army on February 6. In Egypt, on April 16, 2011, the NDP suffered the same fate, after the decision to dissolve the party was handed down by the Supreme Administrative Court.

Djebali resigned, on February 19, 2013, since the other parties rejected his intention to form a technocratic government after the crisis that followed the murder of a prominent member of the opposition, as we will explain later.

Al-Nour supported the Army's coup and agreed to take part in its outline roadmap.

There are several examples of it. On August 12, 2012, Morsi issued a constitutional decree to allow him to assume legislative powers in addition to his executive ones. On November 22, 2012, Morsi issued a statement to avoid judicial oversight or review of his actions. This decree was rescinded the following month.

The Egyptian elections for the two parliamentary houses followed a process in several stages: People's Assembly (November 28 and 29, December 14 and 15, and January 3 and 4) and Shura Council (January 29 to March).

The electoral law was passed by the Council of Ministers on September 25, 2011, and enacted by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) two days later after a partial revision. This law establishes a complex parallel system for the election of the People's Assembly, whereby two thirds of the candidates were elected by the proportional largest remainder formula in closed and blocked lists, and a third by simple majority of nominal candidates. Within this third, a 50-percent quota of seats was reserved for farmworkers and laborers, as occurred under the previous regime. In addition, the new rules make it compulsory to include women in each voting list, which does not guarantee that they are elected because they are not necessarily at the head of the list. Similarly, three seats (of a total of 508) were reserved for Copts and ten were appointed in the Lower House. At first, independent candidates could only be elected by simple majority, and parties could not stand for seats reserved for the independents. This was rejected by the political parties as a whole, for which reason this aspect was reformed on October 1 to allow parties to compete for seats distributed by simple majority.

The Supreme Constitutional Court ratified the dissolution of parliament, despite President Morsi's efforts to avoid it.

The first round of the presidential elections was held on May 23 and 24, and the second on June 16 and 17, 2012.

For different reasons, on April 2012, the Supreme Presidential Election Commission invalidated 10 of 23 candidatures, 3 of whom had significant electoral support: Jairat Al-Shater (official Muslim Brotherhood (MB) candidate), Omar Suleiman (head of the security services during Mubarak's regime), and Salafist Hazem Abu Ismail. Prior to these invalidations, the Popular Assembly approved an amendment to the political rights law in order to ban people who had occupied high posts in Mubarak's regime from holding public offices, although the Constitutional Tribunal determined that the law was unconstitutional. Thus, Mohamed Shafik, last Prime Minister under the Mubarak regime, was able to run for the presidential elections and disputed the second round against Morsi.

The objective was to provide the framework for holding legislative and presidential elections. The presidential term was reduced from six to four years and was restricted to two terms. Moreover, requirements for candidates running for president were set down, as were those for dealing with the judicial control of elections. The reform was carried out by a majority of 77.27 percent votes, although only 41.19 percent of the electorate voted. The procedure for reform was the setting up of a committee of eight constitutionalists, including a member of the MB, led by the prestigious reforming activist, Judge Tarik el Bishri.

In March 2011, a Constitutional Declaration regulated the composition of the Constituent Assembly (article 60), indicating simply that it will be made up of 100 members chosen by members of the two parliamentary houses (except for those who are selected by designation). In the wake of the Islamists' victory in the legislative elections, parliament decided that it should consist of 50 parliamentarians and 50 representatives of civil society. In March 2012, parliament approved the composition of the Constituent Assembly with votes against coming from liberal and non-religious sectors who accused the Islamists of monopolizing the Assembly. Thus, the assembly met on March 28 with only 78 members in attendance.

This declaration consisted of 22 supra-constitutional principles to be taken into account when passing the new constitution. Among other things, these principles granted the military the right to veto certain articles in the draft of the constitution and to draw up a constitution—in their capacity as the SCAF of the acting president—if the Constituent Assembly should not be able to draw one up within a period of six months (article 22.3). The SCAF was also granted the power to control its own budget and to declare war (article 9).

The main friction came about as a consequence of power sharing between the Prime Minister and the President of Republic, which some parties considered to be excessively biased in favor of the former.

As a way out of this crisis, he had proposed the formation of a government of technocrats. However, his initiative was rejected by his own Ennahda party, which led to his resignation.

On January 9, 2014, Prime Minister Larayedh resigned to allow a caretaker Government, which was to implement the political agreement between Government and opposition parties in order to unblock the democratic transition.

In Tunisia, according to article 3 of the partial constitutional reform, the National Constituent Assembly must approve by absolute majority each one of the articles of the proposed constitution. The whole constitution must then be approved by a two-thirds majority. If this majority is not reached, a second reading will take place within a maximum time limit of a month with the aim of passing the text by the same majority. If this majority is not reached the second time, then a referendum will be held, in which case a majority vote will be accepted.

Tamarrod was formed in late April 2013 by members of the protest group Kefaya (Enough).

The MB was banned by a judicial court on September 23, 2013, and was declared a terrorist group in December 2013.