Who is Mondher Zenaidi?

01A man of synthesis

A man of synthesis before a man of consensus. رجل التوليف قبل أن يكون رجل الوفاق

The profile of political leadership that Mondher Zenaidi advocates is closer to the stance of a man of synthesis than to that of a man of soft consensus — a worn-out model that has outlived its time.

The man of consensus carries a political, even politicking, connotation (consensus between political parties and, by extension, between national organisations), whereas the man of synthesis resonates more broadly: he has the ability to reconcile and bring together a Tunisia that is fractured and fragmented, a divide deepened by the rhetoric of division.

Mondher Zenaidi seeks to be that synthesis — the one who builds bonds and reconciliation between:

• favoured regions and disadvantaged regions;
• the Tunisia of before the revolution and the Tunisia of after;
• the Tunisia of older people and that of young people who have lost faith in the future and are increasingly leaving their country;
• the Tunisia of the well-off and that of those, ever more numerous, who live below the poverty line;
• the traditionalist Tunisia of those attached to their identity, and the progressive Tunisia of those who call for openness and modernity.

02A statesman

Statesmen are not born; they are made.

It is a calling acquired through the exercise of power and through a keen sense of the general interest and of the role of a servant of the State. Political regimes come and go; the State remains. The State is the common good of all citizens. A strong, just and strategic State is the best guarantee of a safe, stable and prosperous country. Most of Mr Zenaidi's career has been spent within the State, serving Tunisians day after day.

03A man of experience

Experience saves time; inexperience wastes it.

The country is going through a difficult period that will leave heavy work to be taken up. The task is hard; it demands solid foundations and a swift grasp of the issues. Tunisia can no longer wait: the experience of those who govern it saves time, while inexperience will cost it time it no longer has. The continuity of the State and of its core missions should no longer be exposed to laxity and reckless experiments, which have done the country considerable harm. Mondher Zenaidi has devoted his career to both the continuity and the reform of the State.

04Technical competence combined with political skill

A politician and a technocrat at once.

Tunisia has tried politicians, and they did not satisfy it; it has tried technocrats, and they did not convince either. Tunisia needs public servants who master technical questions and know the files well, yet who can also handle the complex political situations of a country in deep change, face crises, explain, reassure and bring people together.

05In tune with the public administration

Reform the administration — and reassure it, too.

Everyone knows how much weight the Tunisian administration and public sector carry in Tunisians' lives. It is an administration that needs reform, but that also needs reassurance. This must be done with precision and a great deal of explanation. And who better to begin this work of innovation than one of its own, who has also proven himself elsewhere?

06Above partisan battles

A free man who has always kept his independence.

Mondher Zenaidi is a networked political figure, as modern political actors are, free from the constraints of closed structures. He belongs to no political party, no coalition of parties and no political front; he has always kept his independence and resisted the lure of partisan wars and factional infighting. He has always stood out as a free man, an open man, a man who unites and brings together.

07Close to the people

A man of action who listens to Tunisians.

Although he has held high office at national level, Mr Zenaidi has kept his local roots, always listening to ordinary Tunisians, especially those in the most disadvantaged regions. He is a leader who embodies the virtues of “politics of proximity”, and it is this closeness that he has always stood for. He firmly believes that good politics is made primarily from the ground up, which is what makes it more humane and more credible. All of this, of course, without turning it into crude populism or a source of division among Tunisians, and without setting the different parts of the nation against one another.

08A man with a project

A man of the field, guided by a carefully developed project.

Another of Mr Zenaidi's defining traits is that he has carefully worked out his vision for Tunisia. He does not indulge in excessive communication or in sterile, polemical debates that never end. He is a man of the field, a man of action guided by a carefully developed project. A man of action and of concrete results, who refines his proposals, costs them, adapts them and corrects them, so that they stay concrete and realistic. A man of action who does not waste time, which he sees as the limit of the patience of citizens who expect the State to keep its promises and shoulder its responsibilities within the agreed deadlines. Mr Zenaidi is a man with a project, a man of action, who knows how to be master of time.