Tunisia’s Islamist party to step down after talks – The Hindu. If only the Egyptians had waited to see how the Tunisians do it they might have been a lot better off than they are now.
Of course Tunisia had a stronger secular tradition going into this and they are not quite out of the woods yet. But at least there seems to be some hope there, both of finding people who want to govern according to some of the higher moral precepts they derive from Islam without imposing unacceptable aspects of that faith on the rest of the population – and of finding people who are capable of building and defending a secular state without resorting to anti-democratic coup. This does depend largely on population mix in which the religious majority lacks either the magnitude or the will to impose itself unfairly – and also perhaps on the details of a better-defined constitutional process which ensures the continued participation and empowerment of all elements of the population.