Yesterday, Tunisians witnessed the swearing-in of their first freely elected president, Beji Caid Sebsi. The country has achieved much well-deserved praise for what has been a relatively peaceful transition to democracy. It was not an easy achievement for a country that spent 23 years under the autocratic rule of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who himself had ousted Tunisia’s self-declared “president for life” Habib Bourguiba.
With no experience of an honest, transparent political system, achieving a new reality in less than four years involved a steep learning curve. Yet, while none of the other Arab Spring countries have come close to achieving the same outcome, Tunisia’s success has not been without major hurdles.
Mr Sebsi’s election last month followed an October 26 parliamentary poll that saw Tunisians turn out in numbers that neared a 70 per cent participation rate. They arrived at polling booths early and waited an hour or more to cast their votes.
The two parties expected to poll well were Ennahda, the Islamist group headed by longtime opposition figure Rachid Ghannouchi, and Nida Tounes, led by Mr Sebsi, an 88-year-old who was prime minister during the early months of the Tunisian revolution and interior minister for a time under Bourguiba.
Pre-election polls suggested a close race, with one major US newspaper even predicting a win for Ennahda, which had emerged as the strongest party in the first post-revolution Constituent Assembly elections, held in October 2011.
Instead, Nida Tounes won 86 of the 217 parliamentary seats compared to Ennahda’s 69. Given that 22 seats went to other avowedly secular parties, the results suggest voters were not swayed by religion.
Many of them may well have voted for Ennahda in 2011 but become disenchanted. Ennahda’s term in office was characterised by increased unemployment, near zero job creation, a dramatic drop in tourism revenues, a massive flight of foreign investment and a clear sense that security was not a paramount issue – as evidenced by the unresolved assassinations of two Ennahda opponents.
In the end, voters chose Nida Tounes not due to a love for that party but because Ennahda had few, if any, successes to show for its tenure in power.
The year’s second election, with the first round held on November 23, was for the role of president. It is a largely symbolic position, but the president oversees the military and will play an important symbolic role in providing both Tunisians and international investors an idea of the direction the new Tunisia will be taking.
The leading candidates were Mr Sebsi and Mohamed Moncef Marzouki, who was a bona fide opposition figure during the presidency of Mr Ben Ali, who fled the country in 2011.
Mr Marzouki is a medical doctor and human rights advocate whose “street cred” was well documented, even during the Ben Ali years. He had served as the provisional president since October 2011 while heading the Congress Party for the Republic (CPR).
CPR and another small secular party, Ettaktol, were joined in a coalition with Ennahda, which was overwhelmingly the prominent player. Despite his three years as president, Mr Marzouki did not endear himself to the people and didn’t perform well in opinion polls.
It was common knowledge that Ennahda – which did not field a candidate in the presidential election – had encouraged its supporters to throw their political weight behind Mr Marzouki.
The first round of voting involved 27 candidates, but resulted in a December 21 run-off between Mr Marzouki and Mr Sebi, who won with 55.68 per cent of the vote.
Taken together with the parliamentary election, the result tends to suggest that Tunisians want a return to the past, when their country was characterised by secularism, progressive socio-economic policies and its educated populace. They voted for economic improvement, dignity and security.
It is now up to the new leaders to use their five-year mandate to implement policies that will achieve these results.
The challenges for Nida Tounes and Mr Sebsi include tackling youth unemployment, which exceeds 25 per cent, and encourage foreign investment.
The tourism sector – Tunisia’s major earner of hard currency, estimated to provide 7 per cent of the GNP and employ nearly 500,000 people – suffered after the revolution. Despite official statistics suggesting a rebound, reports from the hotel sector indicate otherwise, with many empty rooms and workers on month-to-month contracts.
Security is the issue that concerns all Tunisians. Many still refer with fondness to the period before the revolution, when Mr Ben Ali’s massive security apparatus may have spied extensively on opposition groups but it also instilled a sense of safety.
Some militant groups that have established footholds in Tunisia have made it clear that do not want to see the democratic reforms succeed.
Tunisians are showing that they have embraced democracy, but the “honeymoon” of the revolution is now over.
There is a new government but the tasks ahead are daunting.
Jerry Sorkin is an emeritus president of the American Tunisian Association and lives part of the year in Tunis
Everton 1 Stoke City 0
Everton (Rooney 45 1')
Man of the Match Phil Jagielka (Everton)
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
Gertrude Bell's life in focus
A feature film
At one point, two feature films were in the works, but only German director Werner Herzog’s project starring Nicole Kidman would be made. While there were high hopes he would do a worthy job of directing the biopic, when Queen of the Desert arrived in 2015 it was a disappointment. Critics panned the film, in which Herzog largely glossed over Bell’s political work in favour of her ill-fated romances.
A documentary
A project that did do justice to Bell arrived the next year: Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Letters from Baghdad: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Gertrude Bell. Drawing on more than 1,000 pieces of archival footage, 1,700 documents and 1,600 letters, the filmmakers painstakingly pieced together a compelling narrative that managed to convey both the depth of Bell’s experience and her tortured love life.
Books, letters and archives
Two biographies have been written about Bell, and both are worth reading: Georgina Howell’s 2006 book Queen of the Desert and Janet Wallach’s 1996 effort Desert Queen. Bell published several books documenting her travels and there are also several volumes of her letters, although they are hard to find in print. Original documents are housed at the Gertrude Bell Archive at the University of Newcastle, which has an online catalogue.
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Zayed Sustainability Prize
Zayed Sustainability Prize
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
How to avoid crypto fraud
- Use unique usernames and passwords while enabling multi-factor authentication.
- Use an offline private key, a physical device that requires manual activation, whenever you access your wallet.
- Avoid suspicious social media ads promoting fraudulent schemes.
- Only invest in crypto projects that you fully understand.
- Critically assess whether a project’s promises or returns seem too good to be true.
- Only use reputable platforms that have a track record of strong regulatory compliance.
- Store funds in hardware wallets as opposed to online exchanges.
'The%20Alchemist's%20Euphoria'
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EArtist%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Kasabian%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ELabel%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EColumbia%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Paatal Lok season two
Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy
Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong
Rating: 4.5/5
Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi
Director: Kangana Ranaut, Krish Jagarlamudi
Producer: Zee Studios, Kamal Jain
Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Ankita Lokhande, Danny Denzongpa, Atul Kulkarni
Rating: 2.5/5
The Bio
Favourite place in UAE: Al Rams pearling village
What one book should everyone read: Any book written before electricity was invented. When a writer willingly worked under candlelight, you know he/she had a real passion for their craft
Your favourite type of pearl: All of them. No pearl looks the same and each carries its own unique characteristics, like humans
Best time to swim in the sea: When there is enough light to see beneath the surface
Four-day collections of TOH
Day Indian Rs (Dh)
Thursday 500.75 million (25.23m)
Friday 280.25m (14.12m)
Saturday 220.75m (11.21m)
Sunday 170.25m (8.58m)
Total 1.19bn (59.15m)
(Figures in millions, approximate)
Baby Driver
Director: Edgar Wright
Starring: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, Lily James
Three and a half stars
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history
- 4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon
- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.
- 50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater
- 1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.
- 1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.
- 1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.
-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.
When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.
How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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Scoreline
Chelsea 1
Azpilicueta (36')
West Ham United 1
Hernandez (73')
What is Diwali?
The Hindu festival is at once a celebration of the autumn harvest and the triumph of good over evil, as outlined in the Ramayana.
According to the Sanskrit epic, penned by the sage Valmiki, Diwali marks the time that the exiled king Rama – a mortal with superhuman powers – returned home to the city of Ayodhya with his wife Sita and brother Lakshman, after vanquishing the 10-headed demon Ravana and conquering his kingdom of Lanka. The people of Ayodhya are believed to have lit thousands of earthen lamps to illuminate the city and to guide the royal family home.
In its current iteration, Diwali is celebrated with a puja to welcome the goodness of prosperity Lakshmi (an incarnation of Sita) into the home, which is decorated with diyas (oil lamps) or fairy lights and rangoli designs with coloured powder. Fireworks light up the sky in some parts of the word, and sweetmeats are made (or bought) by most households. It is customary to get new clothes stitched, and visit friends and family to exchange gifts and greetings.
'How To Build A Boat'
Jonathan Gornall, Simon & Schuster
Wicked
Director: Jon M Chu
Stars: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey
