TUNIS // Three years after Tunisia’s revolution, youths who formed the vanguard of protests find themselves sidelined from the political arena by veteran leaders determined to hold on to power.
Sparked on December 17, 2010, by the self-immolation of a 26-year-old street vendor angry about corruption and police harassment, the uprising toppled the autocratic president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, a month later.
But since then, “the revolution of the youths has been confiscated by the old who were hiding at home or abroad during the popular uprising,” said Naima Charmiti.
“Our dinosaurs haven’t stopped telling us that we have a political future, but in reality they haven’t done anything concrete,” said the 32-year-old who runs the arabesque.tn news website.
Two veterans dominate the crisis-hit political scene in the North African country, where people under the age of 30 account for 51 per cent of the population.
One of them, Rached Ghannouchi, 73, heads the ruling Islamist party, Ennahda, and spent two decades in exile before returning to Tunisia in 2011.
The other, Beji Caid Essebsi, 86, leads the main opposition party, Nidaa Tounes.
Mr Essebsi was a minister under Habib Bourguiba, the father of Tunisia’s independence, as well as a parliament speaker during Mr Ben Ali’s rule and prime minister in the months after the revolution.
The pair were at the heart of talks on Monday that failed to lead to the appointment of an independent prime minister to steer Tunisia out of a political crisis that began in July with the assassination of an opposition leader.
Each side has its own candidate. Ennahda and its allies support 88-year-old Ahmed Mestiri, while the opposition backs Mohamed Ennaceur, 79. Both men entered politics during the Bourguiba era.
“Right now it’s clear the leaders of parties are all old, and making matters worse, they appeal to even older men.” said Thameur Mekki, a 27-year-old who supports rappers who have fallen foul of the law over irreverent lyrics.
And in a divisive political era that comes in for ceaseless criticism, one of the rare things leaders have been able to agree on is the lifting of the age limit of 75 for presidential candidates.
Salem Ayari, secretary general of the Tunisian union for unemployed graduates, said the problem was that the political elites simply consider youths as incompetent.
“These people do not believe that young people can take over,” he said, adding it was the same under the ousted regime of Mr Ben Ali “who excluded youths from political life”.
Among political parties, there are restraints that have impeded the involvement of youths, the engine of the revolution who now account for 30 per cent of Tunisia’s unemployed, a figure that is almost double the national average of 16 per cent.
“Following the hyper enthusiasm of the revolution, there is real hyper disappointment,” said Selim Ben Abdessalem, a 43-year-old deputy in the Nidaa Tounes party.
“It would be a huge mistake to ignore them, but there is a lack of ability to attract them.
“There is a distrust of ... youths in all companies and parties.”
But the situation could also be explained by the need for people with experience in Tunisia, which faces growing jihadist violence, political crises and economic hardship.
“We must also stop populism, and the cult of youth,” said Mr Ben Abdessalem.
“Tunisia is in a situation where you don’t go to someone who has no experience in government as prime minister. And if we don’t want those who weren’t in the Ben Ali regime, we have to rely on those from the Bourguiba era,” he said.
* Agence France-Presse
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Lamsa
Founder: Badr Ward
Launched: 2014
Employees: 60
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: EdTech
Funding to date: $15 million
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FIXTURES
All kick-off times 10.45pm UAE ( 4 GMT) unless stated
Tuesday
Sevilla v Maribor
Spartak Moscow v Liverpool
Manchester City v Shakhtar Donetsk
Napoli v Feyenoord
Besiktas v RB Leipzig
Monaco v Porto
Apoel Nicosia v Tottenham Hotspur
Borussia Dortmund v Real Madrid
Wednesday
Basel v Benfica
CSKA Moscow Manchester United
Paris Saint-Germain v Bayern Munich
Anderlecht v Celtic
Qarabag v Roma (8pm)
Atletico Madrid v Chelsea
Juventus v Olympiakos
Sporting Lisbon v Barcelona
How England have scored their set-piece goals in Russia
Three Penalties
v Panama, Group Stage (Harry Kane)
v Panama, Group Stage (Kane)
v Colombia, Last 16 (Kane)
Four Corners
v Tunisia, Group Stage (Kane, via John Stones header, from Ashley Young corner)
v Tunisia, Group Stage (Kane, via Harry Maguire header, from Kieran Trippier corner)
v Panama, Group Stage (Stones, header, from Trippier corner)
v Sweden, Quarter-Final (Maguire, header, from Young corner)
One Free-Kick
v Panama, Group Stage (Stones, via Jordan Henderson, Kane header, and Raheem Sterling, from Tripper free-kick)
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The bio
Studied up to grade 12 in Vatanappally, a village in India’s southern Thrissur district
Was a middle distance state athletics champion in school
Enjoys driving to Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah with family
His dream is to continue working as a social worker and help people
Has seven diaries in which he has jotted down notes about his work and money he earned
Keeps the diaries in his car to remember his journey in the Emirates
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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THE SPECS
2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid LE
Engine: 1.8 litre combined with 16-volt electric motors
Transmission: Automatic with manual shifting mode
Power: 121hp
Torque: 142Nm
Price: Dh95,900
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Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
Bharatanatyam
A ancient classical dance from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Intricate footwork and expressions are used to denote spiritual stories and ideas.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
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- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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TO%20CATCH%20A%20KILLER
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Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
Hotel Data Cloud profile
Date started: June 2016
Founders: Gregor Amon and Kevin Czok
Based: Dubai
Sector: Travel Tech
Size: 10 employees
Funding: $350,000 (Dh1.3 million)
Investors: five angel investors (undisclosed except for Amar Shubar)
