Tunisia 2.0, on its way to the ballot boxes

An old building in the heart of Tunis, near the “Passage” neighborhood. Here, on the fourth floor, is where a group of Tunisian citizens live and play their part in the Tunisian democratic adventure. Together, they animate the site Afkar Mostakella. The internet platform – which translates literally as ”independent ideas” – shares and distributes ideas submitted by citizens, surrounding the October 23 election that will appoint the members of the Constituent Assembly.

The hacktivists, who campaign for openness, open-data and transparency, orchestrated last January’s revolution and thus set this date with history along with other movements. For independent candidates to use the suggestion box, they must adhere to Afkar’s core values ​​as defined by the team.

They have a wide spectrum and are, at first reading, rather consensus-building. ”Preservation of individual liberties”, “value equality for all” and “fight against all forms of discrimination.” The core values don’t seem likely to create fault lines between candidates. Fares Mabrouk, a founder, agreed and said: ”There is a general core basis, but more specific points are split, such as transparency.” Afkar requires that candidates adhere to the idea of ​​”total transparency,” to the opening of public data for open government. Fares Mabrouk argues:

Constituent Assembly debates should be televised and therefore public.

Independent candidates who accept the core values ​​are assisted by Afkar in three ways. Firstly and foremost, they can dip into the suggestion box of submitted ideas. The proposals are for 21 areas, including public service, education, the economy, but also reconciliation and transitional justice. Users have proposed everything from amnesty for those who recognize their transgressions under the old regime in front of a special commission – the South African model – to the introduction of paternity leave.

The crowdsourcing party?

Candidates also have a page on the Afkar site to increase their visibility. A team of coaches advise them. Why does it resemble a political party when the goal was to distance itself from them? Afkar denies such analyses:

Our candidates share a little bit of everything with us. We simply create the party apparatus equivalent of crowdsourcing, whereas the legal opposition during Ben Ali’s time didn’t. We mobilize collective intelligence via web tools.

Khadija Mohsen-Finan, Political Science professor at the University of Paris VIII, supports Afkar. ”On the one hand, party platforms are all very similar. On the other hand, they’ve got the wrong agenda: leadership struggles are replacing discussions about new projects. In this “recovering Tunisia,” said Linda Ben Osman, teacher and volunteer community manager of Afkar. The team fears a lack of suggestions.

Crowdsourcing is at the heart of another project that has been set up for the upcoming elections. Ushahidi’s open-source platform Nchoof – which literally translates as “I look” and is subtitled ”your eyes on your country” – will collect the irregularities observed by voters. This echoes the initiatives launched in Kenya in 2007 during the post-election violence. Koubaa Khaled, one of the founders, explains that Nchoof  ”combines social activism, citizen journalism and geographic information.” Voters can report an incident seen in a polling station; that event is then shown on a map. Election surveillance becomes everyone’s responsibility.

Nchoof is supported by several associations including, for everything technical, the Conscience Policy and Internet Society of Tunisia (ISOC). ISOC Tunisia is funded by the U.S. State Department via the Middle East Partnership Initiative says Khaled Koubaa, president of the association. Members are advocates of open data and open governments:

We work to preserve the openness of the Internet and network neutrality [to] support open goverments, and better transparency and governance in Tunisia.

A new kind of politics

It’s the same deal for Afkar. Between a writing board filled with to-do lists and a retro planning chart, Fares said that he wants Mabrouk to inaugurate ”a new form of politics that makes use of social networks.” Afkar is neither a party nor an association or a think tank, but a platform, a website that brings together an inner circle of forty volunteers, all quite young, all very connected.

It all began with a small team: Slim Amamou, Houeida Anouar and Farès Mabrouk being the figure heads. Marbouk belongs to the same family as Marwane (who has already been highlighted by OWNI in regards to Orange 3G licenses). Farès assures us that he has excellent relations with his cousin, but also that these relations are deeply personal. Marwane has absolutely nothing to do with Afkar, he asserts.

The site imposes strict transparency, proven by the exchange of messages between team members and working papers available on their site, and most importantly, a list of their sponsors. All of this is available to be viewed online. ”Those who fund us must accept that their names be released. If not, we refuse their sponsorship,” Farès reminds us. He also happens to be the principal sponsor of Afkar, his donations being primarily material. Khadija Mohsen-Finan also helps fund the project: “The revolution was made by civil society, vigilance will maintain it.” New web tools enable augmented vigilance.