Beji Caid Essebsi: l'étapisme tunisien?

Les élections approchent et l'approche du Premier ministre lui mérite des félicitations à l'étranger, mais suscite de l'inquiétude dans son pays...

"“When someone is hungry asking for food, you only give him what he needs,” Mr. Essebsi said, describing his go-slow approach to meeting protesters’ demands for jobs and freedoms. “You don’t give him more, or else he might die, so we offer a step-by-step approach.”

Mr. Essebsi, 84, was picked as prime minister in February because during a long career as an official of the Tunisian dictatorship he built a record of trying to change the system from within. But as interim leader he found himself obliged to deal with continuous eruptions of protests demanding jobs, wages and immediate retribution against members of the former ruling elite.

He said he often let the protesters express themselves — but sometimes found the need to crack down.

Mr. Essebsi said it was a choice between yielding to chaos, or loosening the grip gradually, defending his occasional reliance on riot police and tear gas to keep order. His approach has won him broad support but also led a few activists to compare him to the ousted dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

“Sometimes the proponents of freedom have demands that go beyond logic,” he said, “and it is more difficult to protect freedom from the proponents of freedom themselves than from the enemies.”

Mr. Essebsi spoke during an hour-and-a-half interview in an ornately tiled parlor in the centuries-old complex known as Tunis’s casbah, on the eve of a visit this week to the White House and weeks before the election, on Oct. 23, of a new constituent assembly that will govern Tunisia while drafting a new constitution. It promises to be the first free and fair election of the Arab Spring, offering him the historic chance to hand over power in a peaceful, democratic transition — a rare event in the history of the region."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/world/africa/tunisias-interim-leader-essebsi-defends-gradualist-path.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha22