PARIS, Oct 21, 2012 (AFP)
PARIS, Oct 21, 2012 (AFP)
Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jelabi on Sunday said he wanted to build a model democracy in a country where a single suicide sparked an uprising that changed the Arab world forever.
“Our great project is to build a model democracy for the Arab world,” the number two of the ruling Islamist Ennahda party told France’s Le Parisien newspaper in an interview.
“Our model must succeed, Europe and the United States should help us,” he said, urging “European friends to invest in democracy.
“Otherwise, the alternative is chaos, anarchy … which will affect the whole world,” he said.
A young fruit and vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi had set himself on fire on December 17, 2010 to protest against police harrassment.
His drastic action set off the uprisings that toppled former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January last year and then ousted longserving dictators in Egypt, Libya and Yemen.
Tunisia on Tuesday celebrates a year since its first free elections in a political climate marked by tensions within the national assembly, a stalled new constitution and sporadic violence.
