The second wave of the Tunisian revolution: Down with Ghannouchi – All power to the revolutionary people¶
Core Argument¶
Here, Jorge Martín argues that the Tunisian revolution entered a decisive second wave in late February 2011, defined by the mass demand for the removal of Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi and the convocation of a Constituent Assembly. The core narrative thrust is that the revolutionary upsurge that ousted Ben Ali on 14 January had not dissipated but, after a brief interlude of ruling-class manoeuvring, re-emerged with greater clarity of purpose. The chapter contends that the Tunisian bourgeoisie, having lost its dictator, immediately sought to preserve the regime by constructing a “government of national unity” stuffed with Ben Ali’s ministers. The masses, displaying a “sharp revolutionary instinct,” refused to accept this fraud, forcing the UGTT trade union federation to withdraw and later compelling the removal of most RCD ministers and the formal dissolution of the ruling party itself.
Martín’s key claim is that the problem for the ruling class was structural: Ben Ali’s clan dominated the economy so thoroughly that any genuine democratic cleansing threatened the entire capitalist system. The evidence marshalled includes the appointment of 19 regime-linked governors out of 24, the wave of wildcat strikes and physical removal of managers, and the UGTT bureaucracy’s frantic appeals for a return to work. The chapter draws heavily on the immediate chronology of events from late January to late February 2011, citing a 24 February opinion poll showing 50.6% dissatisfaction with the government, 62% prioritising unemployment, and 83% identifying with no existing party—figures deployed to demonstrate the total discrediting of the legal opposition.
The polemic is directed at three targets. First, the UGTT leadership under Abdessalem Jerad, denounced as a Ben Ali loyalist who threatened striking workers as “agents of the RCD.” Second, the “January 14 Front” and the Tunisian Communist Workers’ Party (PCOT), which are accused of possessing an advanced programme but failing to provide practical leadership—arriving at the Kasbah occupation on 20 February to ask who had organised it. Third, the proposed “Council for the Protection of the Revolution,” dismissed as a transparent trick to lend legitimacy to a discredited government. Against these failures, Martín counterposes the spontaneous initiative of revolutionary youth and high school students, coordinated through social media, and insists that only a national convention of elected delegates from revolutionary committees can form a provisional revolutionary council to convene a genuinely democratic Constituent Assembly. The chapter concludes that the Ghannouchi government’s announcement of elections by mid-July is a diversionary tactic, and that the revolution must now pose the question of power directly.