Tunisia has a unique opportunity to draw on the experience of transition
27 February 2012 News
Bulgaria’s Prime Minister opens School of Politics in Tunisia
“I am delighted that within just a few months, this project by the Foreign Ministry and the Bulgarian School of Politics, along with their Tunisian partners, has become a reality because it means that the young politicians of the new Tunisia will have a unique opportunity to draw on the experience of the transition from dictatorship to democracy in countries such as Bulgaria.”
This was said by Prime Minister Boyko Borissov at the opening of the Tunisian School of Politics, housed in the Bulgarian Embassy building. He said that the opening of the school was an indication that Bulgaria wanted to help, sharing its successes and mistakes, rather than to impose lessons.
In a lecture at the school, Foreign Minister Nickolay Mladenov said that Bulgaria was led by the understanding that democracy cannot be imposed from outside and that peaceful transition is a major political task. "In the early 1990s, we had to decide how to deal with the legacy of the past and now you are facing the same challenge," Mladenov said, recalling the results of the Sofia Platform conference in December 2011 (link to http://www.sofiaplatform . org /), dedicated to justice in transition.
Mladenov emphasised that the achievement of freedom, accompanied by the creation of numerous and sometimes very noisy political parties, is still the only way for society to respond effectively to current events. Therefore, parties should be stable and have mechanisms for contacts among them, and the School of Politics could be very useful in this respect, Minister Mladenov said.
In conclusion, he expressed confidence that Tunisia will be a model for the way that processes unfold in many countries of the Arab world, and that the School of Politics in Tunisia will be replicated elsewhere in the region.