PREELECTION APATHY, ALIENATION, AND TALES OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L TUNIS 000746 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/06/2019 TAGS: PREL PHUM KDEM ELAB TS SUBJECT: PREELECTION APATHY, ALIENATION, AND TALES OF REPRESSION FROM SOUTHERN TUNISIA REF: A. TUNIS 741 ¶B. TUNIS 725 ¶C. TUNIS 694 AND PREVIOUS Classified by Ambassador Gordon Gray for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) On a visit to Tunisia's southeast, Poloff found citizens generally apathetic about the upcoming elections. Most expressed resignation and said they would vote for Ben Ali - "he has been there forever and will stay until we have all gone." Most Tunisian voters we encountered could name neither the parties involved in the elections nor any of the other presidential candidates. Opposition party activists voiced defiance as they continue to operate in a repressive environment. They described continuous government harassment and called on the USG to publicly condemn the election as a sham. Notwithstanding the tangible general apathy toward the election, we also found indications of popular support for the banned Islamist Nahda party. Several contacts also thought attitudes toward the U.S., which had improved after President Obama's election, were again on the decline. End summary. ¶2. (C) Poloff spent five days visiting three provincial capitals in Tunisia's southeast: The petro-chemical town of Gabes, the trading town of Mednine, close to the Libyan border, and the island of Djerba, known for its tourist industry and its small but thriving Jewish community. Along the way she talked with dozens of local Tunisians, including bus and air passengers, taxi drivers, merchants, restaurant workers, political party activists, and a provincial head of the Tunisian Human Rights League. Poloff was followed by plainclothes security for much of her itinerary, and police questioned (telephonically) several of our interlocutors. -------------- Street-Level Opinions: Apathy and Resignation -------------- ¶3. (C) Asked if they were going to vote in the election, many "average" Tunisians encountered in public settings told poloff reflexively, "I have my voter's identification card," -- meaning they are on the right side of the regime and will vote for Ben Ali. Tunisians young and old encountered on the street during this trip said they would vote for President Ben Ali. Many added, "there is no other choice," or "he provides security." ¶4. (C) A storekeeper we spoke with laughed and said Ben Ali is just like Qadhafi; he will stay until we are all gone. Anecdotal evidence suggests those whom the regime suspects of less than total support for Ben Ali often have a hard time getting their voting cards, while other Tunisians face various forms of peer and bureaucratic pressure to vote. One woman in her mid-twenties who - unlike most women encountered on the trip - was not wearing a head scarf, and said she did not bother to vote because her father voted for her. A taxi driver, outspoken on a variety of issues, said he had never voted and would not this time. He would vote in the United States or even in Iran but not in Tunisia, as there was no point. -------------- Sub-Surface Support for Islamists? -------------- ¶5. (C) Our contacts in the (secular) opposition Progressive Development Party believed that the banned Islamist Nahda ("Renewal") Party enjoyed considerable public support, even though the government had driven the group underground. A talkative man in his sixties, whom poloff met in Djerba, was outwardly religious and said he sometimes served as an Imam at the mosque. He said he had learned English from Peace Corps volunteers in the 1960s. He said he got involved in politics in the 1991 elections but when he saw the consequences (i.e. many Nahda supporters thrown in prison), he quit politics and now he does not get involved. He has his store and his garden and that is enough. He added that it took 10-12 years before his "neighbors" stopped reminding him that they knew he did not support Ben Ali. ¶6. (C) When asked about the other party candidates, only two people were able to come up with the name of a candidate and only one knew how many other candidates there were. Most people said they had no idea about the other parties, their platforms, or their candidates. They said the other parties do not matter, they do not have a chance, and they do not have an impact. The two people who volunteered information about other parties referred, without prompting, to the Nahda Party, although one person said that even that party did not have much of a platform. -------------- A Long, Hard Slog Under a Heavy Boot -------------- ¶7. (C) While Tunis is covered with "Ben Ali 2009" posters, there were none in Djerba and only a few in Gabes and Mednine. In Gabes, the headquarters of the ruling Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD),was wrapped in bunting and municipal workers were putting up banners announcing a government speech. In contrast, offices of the opposition PDP in Gabes and Mednine were small, 2 to 3 rooms, with spare furnishings and political banners on the inside walls. The PDP is one of the three actually independent political parties in Tunisia (the other two are El-Tajdid, the former Tunisian Communist Party, and the FTDL, the Democratic Forum for Labor and Liberties). ¶8. (C) The PDP activists said if they put banners outside their own offices, the police would rip them down promptly. Asked about the government's rejection of 17 of the PDP's 26 proposed legislative candidate slates, the PDP representatives claimed the pattern was to approve only in areas where the party had a weak organization and less popular support. The PDP activists claimed their party was fairly strong in Gabes, with 500 members, as opposed to the southeastern cities of Tataouine and Zarzis, where they only had 30 members each. ¶9. (C) The PDP activists recounted a pattern of persistent government harassment. When they try to hold seminars or events the police block the roads and prevent people from attending, especially young people. In both Gabes and Mednine, the party had had trouble renting offices. In Gabes, the local security had circulated a petition in the neighborhood to try and get the neighbors to protest and force the PDP to move. This had not succeeded. In Medinine, it took two years before the party was able to find tenable office space. The head of the PDP's office in Gabes told us that two years ago, he had asked for and was granted a meeting with the Governor. However, when he arrived for the meeting, the Governor's office was surrounded by police who would not let him enter. ¶10. (C) One PDP representative was the head of the legislative list for the small southeastern city of Siliana, and the other party members thought he might actually make it into Parliament. He said that if he got into Parliament, he had no illusions about what he would be able to achieve. He added that the Tunisian Parliament never drafts legislation, nor does it even change legislation submitted by the government. However, his presence in parliament would still offer a forum to discuss the major problems of unemployment and corruption, he thought. ¶11. (C) Two activists, one a PDP member and one a lawyer affiliated with the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH),both said they had paid the price for trying to visit the politically sensitive mining area of Gafsa, the scene of civil unrest in 2008. The PDP member said his car was stopped by police and had his finger broken as a warning not to go to Gafsa. The lawyer said that after he defended some of the Gafsa demonstrators tried in early 2009, he was put in prison himself for a minor traffic accident and fined TD 1,000 ($746). The average monthly salary is about $300. The government relies on traffic fines, permit requests, and other bureaucratic procedures to control and restrict citizens' behavior, he opined. -------------- -------------- Attitudes Toward the USG: Post-election Euphoria Fading -------------- -------------- ¶12. (C) Several of our civil society/activist contacts in the south voiced their concern that President Obama was losing popularity in the region. They were concerned that the United States would not support democratic activists as it had in the past and they were concerned that the U.S. was not changing its policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶13. (C) Our observations from this trip reinforced our sense that the Ben Ali regime has left little to chance in preempting all but the most token showing of opposition in the upcoming presidential and legislative elections. The public's apathy and alienation from the political process may translate into smooth sailing for the regime at the October 25 polls but do not bode well for the country's long term political development. End comment. GRAY