Tunisian voters have broken the cycle of Arab regimes. Outsiders will fight to be president – and one of them is in jail

Complacent generals and Islamists have been locked in their mutual dance for so long that the Arab Spring’s second wave has bubbled up almost unnoticed

Presidential candidate Kais Saied speaks as he attends a news conference after the announcement of the results in the first round of Tunisia's presidential election in Tunis, Tunisia September 17, 2019. (REUTERS/MUHAMMAD HAMED)

It seems that people in the Arab world are not bluffing about change. We have become used to a parade of religious hardliners and military generals addressing nations from gilded thrones, but now a new Arab political elite looks like it might have the means to break the cycle, one country at a time.

On Sunday, the people of Tunisia dealt the old establishment a major blow in the first round of its presidential election. And it felt like a powerful moment.

Tunisians voted for two unknown politicians, Kais Saied and Nabil Karoui, to go through to a runoff vote next month. Neither Saied nor Karoui belong to the establishment, nor are they close to the military or even the strong workers unions. However, they managed to knock out heavyweight politicians who were linked to either the old regime or the Islamists, including the incumbent prime minister, two former prime ministers, the defence minister and a former president.

Kais is a social conservative who sought to align himself with Tunisia’s young people who are pressing for change. More bizarrely, voters backed Karoui, a controversial businessman who is locked up in a prison cell on corruption charges.

Both candidates proved that leading big traditional campaigns to win votes in the Arab World is now an out-of-date stunt. The people’s message was loud and clear: they want change.

In effect, Tunisia delivered another round of the 2011 revolution which ended the rule of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and in doing so have set the course for the single most successful democratic transformation in the Arab World.

The new “political uprising” in Tunisia erodes the hopes of both Ennahda (the biggest Islamist movement) and the post-revolution secular zealots, while setting new rules for the political game.

The Tunisian presidential election is part of a major new movement rattling stagnant Arab regimes. It echoes, almost entirely, the mutiny in Sudan, which ended the 30-year void that defined an alliance between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military. In its place has risen an alliance of pure civilian activists. The consistency and resolve of protesters in Khartoum became an emblem of widespread determination that not only pushed the military to mark a path to civilian rule, but will likely resonate all over the Arab World.

The best way to describe this movement is as a period of psychological atonement. People realise that a political system built on a bipolarity between the military and Islamists has failed and needs replacing. No one is quite sure what it needs replacing with, but people seem ready, more than ever, for the biggest game of political trial-and-error ever seen in the region.

I have just returned from Egypt, where people have been excited to hear from Mohamed Ali, a contractor and a misfit actor, whose videos highlighting alleged corruption and wrongdoing within the military have caused uproar. This single man’s campaign has rattled the regime and put it genuinely on the defensive for the first time since the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi’s government in 2013.

And when the Muslim Brotherhood is mentioned, even in passing, as a potential alternative to despotic military rule, people now vehemently rebuff any thought they might be given a second chance.

In the streets of Cairo, people lament the expanding military economic empire, the lack of equality and social justice. They complain about how the country of 105 million people has been subjugated by the generals and their puppet security apparatus. And at the same time, they express their scorn towards Islamists.

Not far to the west, many Algerians continue to take to the streets every week asking for civilian democratic rule. And this is despite unequivocal resistance from the military under Ahmed Gaid Salah and his protégés.

Algerians look to their Tunisian neighbours and hope one day they too will be able to scrutinise political candidates debating on TV. They too dream of the day when they can participate in free and impartial elections to choose their political leaders.

People in the Middle East seem ready to build a brand new political elite. There may be a lack of experience (and sometimes the gravitas) to run the state, but the people’s focus is on new faces and fresh agendas.

Complacent generals and Islamists have been locked in their mutual dance for so long that the Arab Spring’s second wave has bubbled up almost unnoticed. They are unable to understand or address the profound but quiet changes now starting to define Arab societies.

In 2018, independent activists dominated Tunisian municipal elections. That set the course for a new, non-partisan style of politics in the country. Now we have two relatively unknown politicians in the runoffs for president, and more than that, it is likely a similar batch of politicians will do well in parliamentary elections due next month.

The social contract, which managed to hold together the regional power system of monarchy and military dynasties and prop up Islamists as an alternative, is falling apart. The people of Tunisia and Sudan have proved that democratic or revolutionary measures can lead to the same destination, and to the repudiation of that old system.