Tunisia: Understanding Conflict 2012 - Johns Hopkins School of ...

parties. With the internal arrangements finalized only in January, the Assembly could
finally turn to the discussion of the articles.
Major Issues
There are five main issue areas around which the debate has centered during the drafting
of the constitution: the role of religion in public life, separation of powers, women’s
rights and universal values, decentralization and, finally, the ‘style’ of government, either
presidential, parliamentary or some mix of the two. While some of these debates are
likely to be uncontroversial, others are likely to divide both the constituents and the
Tunisian population at large. Given Tunisia’s status as a relatively ethnically
homogenous and non-sectarian nation, the biggest social cleavage of political
significance is between the secularists and the Islamists, and following the ousting of the
regime and the subsequent transitional period, the polarization between this and other
cleavages, suppressed for so long by the Ben Ali regime, has increased. As such, the most
controversial issue that the constitution drafters will have to negotiate is the role of
religion in public life. There is a considerable amount of debate, and in some cases fear
mongering, about whether Article 1 of the 1959 constitution will remain or be
strengthened. It currently reads:
“Tunisia is a free, independent and sovereign state. Its religion is
Islam, its language is Arabic and its type of government is the
Republic.”
At this stage it appears that the main parties have agreed to keep this article the same,
which should not be too inflammatory since this article has been in the Tunisian
constitution since 1959. What might prove to be more controversial are the actions that
could be taken by those who feel that this article was neglected and not implemented, and
so might call for greater constitutional protection of the role of Islam in Tunisian society.
This could manifest itself, for example, in articles that concern the trade-off between
collective and individual rights, such as weighing the importance of freedom of
expression and religious sensitivity. The inflammatory potential of this topic was
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