Jomaa: Rebuilding Tunisia and tempering expectations

TUNIS // Ahead of Tunisia's parliamentary elections on Sunday, acting prime minister Mehdi Jomaa said politicians should stop making the overly optimistic promises seen following the uprising against Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.
"The mistake made immediately after the revolution was to say that all the disparities were going to disappear, that everyone was going to have a job and so on," Mr Jomaa said. "The whole of the Tunisia's political class made this mistake." Three years later, the country's public-sector payroll has swollen to around 600,000, with many of the jobs going to former political prisoners and relatives of those injured or killed in the revolution against Ben Ali's rule. Commitments made to lower the disparity in living standards between coastal towns and the marginalised interior have gone largely unfulfilled.
Fledgling politicians elected to a new assembly in October 2011 debated a document that now enshrines the right to free health care for those on low incomes, and the right to work. "That was a political period par excellence, with a lack of focus on the economy," Mr Jomaa said. The ideological strife triggered by the constitution drafting could now be a thing of the past, Mr Jomaa said, as the country seeks prosperity in a strong economy.
"The role of my government since January has been to put economic issues back in the centre of the debate, to show how important they are. Because without economic issues being tackled, we won't have stability on the social front, and without that this democratic experiment won't translate into permanent change."
The government that will be formed after the elections "will be obliged to focus on the economy", he said, adding that in recent months his administration had encouraged public debate on economic policy by releasing more data and indicators than were ever released under Ben Ali.
Mr Jomaa spoke to The National in his office in Dar El Bey, a historic building in Tunis's old city where the Ottoman-era bey once lodged his visitors.
A former engineer, he was appointed prime minister in January, at the end of a political crisis that almost threw Tunisia's transition to democracy off-course.
His task was to put together an interim cabinet of politically unaligned technocrats that could run the country until fresh parliamentary and presidential elections.
In an opinion poll released last week by the independent US-based Pew Research. Mr Jomaa was given an 81 per cent approval rating by those polled, outstripping in popularity longer established public figures. His understated style was appreciated by Tunisians who have lived through some periods of turmoil since 2011, and he leaves office widely respected, most likely to continue his business career.
Sunday's parliamentary election will be followed by a November 23 presidential election, with a run-off likely on December 28 if no candidate gains more than 50 per cent of the vote.
Some analysts anticipate a close result in the parliamentary poll: the Islamists of the Ennahda Party are expected to face a challenge from the new, centrist Nida Tounes party - despite the new party's associations with the old regime.
The election is likely to be followed by weeks of deal-making.
"I would say it's highly probable that we will have a government in place in February," Mr Jomaa said. "But all that has yet to be finalised by the political parties" in meetings with representatives of the National Dialogue, said Mr Jomaa, referring to the tripartite group consisting of Tunisia's UGTT trade union federation, the UTICA business association and the Bar Association representing Tunisian lawyers. This group was key during the political crisis of 2013, when it persuaded parties at loggerheads to accept a deal in which the Islamist-led coalition government ceded power to Mr Jomaa's non-party administration.
Fiscal reforms enacted this year, along with selective cuts in fuel subsidies designed to target the middle class rather than low-income Tunisians, are projected to help reduce the country's budget deficit to an expected 5.8 per cent of GDP by the end 2014, rather than the 9.2 per cent it would have been without these reforms, Mr Jomaa said.
Basic foodstuffs such as bread and pasta remain heavily subsidised, but there is a freeze on public-sector hiring.
Mr Jomaa said that after the elections, both Tunisian and foreign investors would have better "visibility" in a more stable political environment. Long-awaited reforms on regulations for foreign and domestic investment are likely to be on the agenda of the next government.
Mr Jomaa said that along with the economy, his government had focused on regional ties and security, Mr Jomaa said
Instability in Libya since the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi has been a major drag on economic recovery since the revolution.
Although the Tunisian government has been trying to promote dialogue among Libyans, it is realistic that the instability there will limit the recovery of that major market for Tunisian goods and services, Mr Jomaa said.
"In our budgetary planning we are factoring in a situation in Libya that continues to deteriorate," he said.
Relations with Tunisia's other neighbour, Algeria, have also been given priority by the Jomaa government during its nine months in office.
With the emergence of armed Islamist groups in Tunisia's western mountains, cooperation with the Algerian security forces has been important.
He said: "In all our anti-terrorist efforts of the last nine months, the objective has been to stabilise the country, make it secure and also to create a suitable security environment for the elections."
These militant groups see the success of Tunisia's transition towards democracy as a threat to their goals, he said.
Tunisia has moved forward from a very vulnerable position following the 2011 revolution to a situation where "we are in the process of building a very solid state". he said.
"The more they persist the more we have been re-establishing our control on the ground. I'm confident that the elections will go smoothly, because of the preparations in terms of security, for protecting polling stations, for distributing electoral material and collecting the voting returns."
Around 50,000 members of the police and national guard, will be mobilised on election day, along with 30,000 soldiers.
The armed groups do not want to see "a country that is making a success of building a state", he said.
"The state has now made a strong comeback, and it's strong because it has legitimacy and the support of the population, as well as through the effective deployment of its security forces."
foreign.desk@thenational.ae