TUNIS, Tunisia — Nearly four years before his name appeared on the ballot in Tunisia’s run-off presidential elections Dec. 21, Beji Caid Essebsi had represented the country as interim prime minister at the 2011 gathering of the G-8 in Deauville, France. At the meeting, Essebsi signed on to the Deauville Partnership, a multibillion dollar initiative by Western powers and international financial institutions to support countries in transition following the Arab Spring.

The partnership aimed to help stabilize regional economies, better integrate them into the global market, create jobs and promote transparent governance by making financing available and pushing for reforms. The principles established by the partnership have guided Tunisian economic policy since 2011 and are largely supported by the country's two main political parties — the secular, modernist Nidaa Tunis, headed by Essebsi, and the moderate Islamist Ennahda.

Following legislative elections in October, Nidaa Tunis emerged as the largest party in parliament, with 86 out of 217 seats, and was tasked with putting together a coalition to form the next government. Ennahda came in second place, with 69 seats. Nidaa Tunis and Ennahda are intensely polarized — except, apparently, when it comes to the economy. In respect to the economy, Youssef Cherif, a political consultant, told Al-Monitor, “At the end of the day, they do agree on many points.”

Other political parties and civil society groups, however, are less convinced that the reforms promoted by international financial institutions are the best way forward. “Unfortunately, regarding the World Bank and the IMF [International Monetary Fund] in Tunisia, we have had a bitter experience,” Mongi Rahoui, a member of parliament from the leftist Popular Front, told Al-Monitor.