 | This article'slead sectionmay be too short to adequatelysummarize the key points. Please consider expanding the lead toprovide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article.(May 2017) |
 |
|---|
 Member State of the Arab League |
|
.svg) Africa portal Politics portal |
Liberalism inTunisia, orTunisian Liberalism, is a school of political ideology that encompasses various political parties in the country.
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding missing information.(May 2017) |
in September 1988, theSocial Liberal Party (PSL) was founded under the name "Social Party for Progress", but was renamed in October 1993 to reflect its liberal ideology.[1] As well as liberal social and political reforms, the PSL advocateseconomic liberalisation, including theprivatisation of state-owned firms.[2] The party is a member of theLiberal International and theAfrica Liberal Network.[3]
Active from 1993 to 2012, theEttajdid Movement (Movement for Renewal) was acentre-leftsecularist,democratic socialist andsocial liberalpolitical party inTunisia.[4][5][6][7][8] It was led byAhmed Ibrahim.[9] For theConstituent assembly election, Ettajdid formed a strongly secularist alliance calledDemocratic Modernist Pole (PDM), of which it was the mainstay.[10][11]
Ahmed Brahim was the First Secretary of the movement and also the leader of theDemocratic Modernist Pole until April 2012, when his party merged into theSocial Democratic Path of which he became the president. He was the Ettajdid Movement's candidate forPresident of Tunisia in the2009 presidential election.[12][13] Brahim was in favor of the emergence of a "democratic modern andsecular [laicist] state" not connected with Islamists. According to Brahim, this would require "radical" reform of the electoral system, which would improve the political climate in guaranteeing freedom of assembly and a large scale independent press, as well as repealing a law that regulated public discourse of electoral candidates.[14]
In 1983, theProgressive Democratic Party (PDP) was founded under the name ofProgressive Socialist Rally, and gained legal recognition on 12 September 1988.[15] It wassecular andliberal party.[16][17][18][19] The party was renamed as Progressive Democratic Party in 2001. Under the rule ofBen Ali it was a legal opposition party, but subjected to political repression.[20] After theTunisian revolution it was one of the major left-leaning secular political forces.[21] It was led byAhmed Najib Chebbi andMaya Jribi. On 9 April 2012, it merged into theRepublican Party.[22] Maya Jribi, an outspokenfeminist andanti-zionist, has been the first woman to lead a political party in Tunisia.[23][24][25]
The Progressive Democratic Party had a newspaper,Al-Mawqif.[15][26]
On 25 July 2001, the creation of theCongress for the Republic (CPR) was declared.[27] Is acentre-left, liberal andsecularpolitical party founded by 31 people including the physician, medicine professor and human rights activistMoncef Marzouki as president,Naziha Réjiba (Oum Ziad) as Secretary-general, Abderraouf Ayadi as vice-president, Samir Ben Amor as Treasurer, and Mohamed Chakroun as Honorary President.[28] The CPR declared that it was aimed to install arepublican form of government "for the first time"in Tunisia, includingfreedom of speech,freedom of association, and the holding of "free, honest"elections, "guaranteed by national and international observers able to genuinely check all levels of the electoral process".[27] The CPR's declaration also called for a new constitution, strict separation of the different branches of government,human rights guarantees,gender equality, and a constitutional court for protecting individual and collective rights.[27] The CPR called for renegotiating Tunisian commitments toward theEuropean Union, for Tunisia to support the rights of national self-determination, in particular for thePalestinian people.[27]
Formed in 2010 and legalised on 12 March 2012, theTunisian Pirate Party is a small political party inTunisia.[29] It's one of the first outgrowths of thePirate Party movement in continental Africa. The party achieved notoriety during theTunisian revolution, as party members declared their intention to break a media blackout on the social unrest taking place across the country. Members distributed censorship circumvention software, and assisted in documenting human rights abuses during the riots in the cities of Sidi Bouzid, Siliana, and Thala.[30] After the revolution, a Pirate Party member who had been detained during the unrest,Slim Amamou, was briefly selected as Secretary of State for Sport and Youth in the new government. He later resigned in protest of the transitional government's censorship of several websites at the request of the army.[31] He was arrested on 6 January 2011 during the protests that led to theTunisian Revolution, alongside others includingAzyz Amami. TheAnonymous hacktivist group had led attacks on the Tunisian government's websites, and Amamou was held for five days by the state security forces under the suspicion of having collaborated with the hackers.[32] Following a mass internet campaign and protest, Amamou and other bloggers were released from government custody.[32] He supports thelegalisation of cannabis in Tunisia. He is an advocate fornetwork neutrality and opposesinternet censorship.[31]
.jpg)
TheTunisian Revolution[33] was an intensive campaign ofcivil resistance, including a series of streetdemonstrations taking place inTunisia, and led to the ousting of longtime presidentZine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. It eventually led to a thoroughdemocratization of the country and to free and democratic elections with theTunisian Constitution of 2014,[34] which is seen as progressive, increases human rights, gender equality, government duties toward people, lays the ground for a new parliamentary system and makes Tunisia a decentralized andopen government.[34][35] And with the held of the country firstparliamentary elections since the 2011 Arab Spring[36] and itspresidentials on 23 November 2014,[37] which finished its transition to a democratic state. These elections were characterized by the fall in popularity of Ennahdha, for the secularNidaa Tounes party, which became the first party of the country.[38]
The demonstrations were caused by highunemployment, foodinflation,corruption,[39][40] a lack ofpolitical freedoms likefreedom of speech[41] and poorliving conditions. The protests constituted the most dramatic wave of social and political unrest in Tunisia in three decades[42][43] and resulted in scores of deaths and injuries, most of which were the result of action by police and security forces against demonstrators. The protests were sparked by theself-immolation ofMohamed Bouazizi on 17 December 2010[44][45][46] and led to the ousting of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali 28 days later on 14 January 2011, when he officially resigned after fleeing toSaudi Arabia, ending 23 years in power.[47][48] Labour unions were said to be an integral part of the protests.[49] TheTunisian National Dialogue Quartet was awarded the2015 Nobel Peace Prize for "its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Tunisian Revolution of 2011".[50] The protests inspiredsimilar actions throughout the Arab world.
On 22 March 2011 theMaghrebi Republican Party (PRM) was founded by Mohamed Bouebdelli, head of theFree University of Tunis, under the name of Maghrebi Liberal Party and it changed its name to Maghrebi Republican Party on 13 April 2012.[51][52] The party is liberal.[53]
Founded on March 28, 2011 (2011-03-28),Afek Tounes (Tunisian Horizons) is acentre-right political party inTunisia.[54] Its program isliberal, focusing onsecularism andcivil liberties. The party mainly appealed to intellectuals and the upper class.[55] After underperforming in the 2011 Constituent Assembly election, Afek Tounes joined talks with other secularist and liberal parties, especially theProgressive Democratic Party to form a "big party of the centre". The merger was completed on 9 April 2012. The new party is called theRepublican Party.[22] In August 2013,Yassine Brahim, current leader of the party, and other former party members left the Republican Party to revive Afek Tounes.[56]
| This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding missing information.(May 2017) |
Formed on 7 April 2012, thePirate Party is a small political party inTunisia.[57] It is the second Pirate party in Tunisia after theTunisian Pirate Party.[58] On the Pirate Party's official website, it lists its main objectives as preserving the right of every citizen of the absolutefreedom of expression, communication,association andassembly,direct democracy and the inclusion of digital technology in this area support, dedicated to theneutrality of the Internet, protecting thefreedom of information andindependence of investigative journalism, unconditional and free access to information,open government, anti-censorship of all kinds, among others.[59]
On 9 April 2012, theRepublican Party was formed as a merger of theProgressive Democratic Party (PDP),Afek Tounes and the Tunisian Republican Party, several minor parties and independents. The party iscentrist andliberal, it's led byMaya Jribi who was previously the secretary-general of the PDP.[22] The party held 11 out of 217 seats and was the largest oppositional party in the NationalConstituent Assembly of Tunisia. The party withdrew from theUnion for Tunisia coalition, though it is still part of theNational Salvation Front.[60]
After the founding congress, nine assemblymen elected for the PDP contested the leadership vote and temporarily suspended their party membership.[61] Those 9 members became part of theDemocratic Alliance Party.[62]
After being founded in 2012,Nidaa Tounes (Call of Tunisia) won a plurality of seats in theOctober 2014 parliamentary election.[63] It's abig tentsecularist political party inTunisia. The party's founding leaderBeji Caid Essebsi was electedPresident of Tunisia in the2014 presidential election. The party's foundation was announced when former prime ministerBeji Caid Essebsi on April 20, 2012, launched hisCall for Tunisia as a response to post-revolutionary "instances of disturbing extremism and violence that threaten public and individual liberties, as well as the security of the citizens".[64] It was officially founded on 16 June 2012 and describes itself as a "modernist"[65] and "social-democratic" party of themoderate left.[66] However, it also includes notableeconomically liberal currents.[67][68][69]
| This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding missing information.(May 2017) |
| This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding missing information.(May 2017) |
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)