re: Ann: Chorbane Permit Extension and Drilli... An early...

re: Ann: Chorbane Permit Extension and Drilli... An early election will greatly favour the hard-line Islamists. They were the only consistently organised opposition group under Ben Ali's rule and are therefore the only election-ready party now.

The other nascent parties still have a long way to go before they are sufficiently well organised, politically-differentiated and individually supported by the general population. They need as much extra time as they can get to establish themselves as credible election candidates.

The transition from dictatorship to democracy cannot be rushed, as the Americans discovered to their cost in both Iraq and Afghanistan. As one recent commentator put it: 'They expected that as soon as they had toppled Saddam, Iraq would somehow magically turn into France'. It didn't, and the first hastily-arranged Iraqi election was followed by a lengthy descent into corruption, bloodshed and chaos.

So if I was Tunisian, I wouldn't want to rush things, American-style, just for the sake of a few months.