Nobel Peace Prize: National Dialogue Quartet rewarded for' decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia'

'Tunisia has succeeded without arms, without Kalashnikovs, without a high number of deaths. Democracy is possible in Arab countries, Tunisia proves it'

Members of the winning organisations (from left) Wided Bouchamaoui, Houcine Abbassi, Abdessattar ben Moussa and Mohamed Fadhel Mahmoud (AFP/Getty Images)

Tunisian civil society groups widely credited with ensuring that the birthplace of the Arab Spring did not descend into bloody violence, political turmoil and authoritarian rule were yesterday awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The National Dialogue Quartet are four of the country’s strongest civil organisations, who came together in 2013 after widespread outcry over two political assassinations. Then, as now, the fledgling democracy teetered on the brink of a return to autocratic rule.

A day before the Nobel winners were announced this week, a politician from Tunisia’s ruling secular party escaped an assassination attempt when a gunman riddled his car with automatic rifle fire from a passing vehicle.

Tunisia is caught up in a growing battle against Islamist militants who have carried out two major attacks this year and in 2013 assassinated two opposition leaders.

The Nobel Prize Committee said it had selected the Tunisian group “for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011”.

The Quartet was an unlikely grouping, bringing together the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicraft (Utica), The Human Rights League and The Tunisian Order of Lawyers.

“It is recognition for the Tunisian model, a model based on dialogue,” Sami Tahri, official spokesman of the UGTT said. “Tunisia has succeeded without arms, without Kalashnikovs, without a high number of deaths. Democracy is possible in Arab countries, Tunisia proves it.”

The UGTT, Tunisia’s powerful union, was created in the 1940s, and played a critical role in the country’s independence struggle. The Utica, which represents 150,000 employers, is usually a steadfast adversary of the union movement. But for a brief period in late 2013, business leaders, workers, lawyers and rights activists alike decided they shared a common interest in maintaining a level of political stability.

Tunisians have been through a tumultuous time since their January 2011 uprising against former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s authoritarian and corrupt police state. Leftist Chokri Belaid was assassinated on 6 February 2013, causing the Islamist-led government to step down amid some of the largest protests in the country’s history. Then came a second assassination, of Arab Nationalist MP Mohamed Brahimi, on 25 July that year.

The assassinations were widely seen as an attack on the democratic transition. In the absence of any serious investigation, the identity of the culprits remains a mystery.

The Quartet was formed in October 2013, removing the crisis from the purely political context. Together, the parties succeeded in setting a road map for the final stages of the transition. This enabled the National Constituent Assembly to draft the constitution, and allowed for a technocrat government to take over in January 2014. The country’s first democratic parliamentary and presidential elections in late 2014 then passed without any major issues.