Tunisian Islamists in power: Doing well on parole TUNISIA'S Islamist-led government boasts an unusual qualification. No fewer than ten cabinet members are former political prisoners. The prime minister, Hamadi Jebali, himself spent 14 years in jail, most of them in solitary confinement. During the 23-year reign of the ousted dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, all that prisoners could read, apart from the Koran, was the deadening officialese of Tunisian newspapers. As the government completes its first 100 days in office, critics still charge that prison and exile have hardly equipped ministers to navigate a difficult transition to democracy. Most Tunisians seem to take a different view. Recent opinion polls suggest that Mr Jebali's support easily exceeds the nearly 37% of votes that his party, Ennahda, scored in last October's election. Approval ratings for the non-Islamist partners in his coalition, the centre-left Congress for the Republic and Ettakatol, have likewise risen. The novice government survived some very wobbly first weeks. Even the weather seemed to conspire against it: heavy winter snowfalls in the north west were followed by floods that destroyed early crops. Mr Jebali had to content himself with hovering in a helicopter as crowds of young men below attacked government buildings to protest what they said was a slow response by the authorities. Back in the capital, Ali Laarayedh, the new interior minister, drew cheers for swiftly demoting the head of the riot police, who was widely blamed for the shooting of demonstrators during the revolution last year. Within days, a blurry video supposedly showing Mr Laarayedh, as a political prisoner, having sex with a fellow detainee found its way onto Facebook. The video so reeked of the tried and tested methods of the old regime that even his political opponents rallied in support of Mr Laarayedh. If the revolution has so far brought little tangible improvement in living standards, freedom from Mr Ben Ali's ruthless secret police is one gain Tunisians are determined to keep. Yet the government knows it needs to show firmness on law and order, without in any way stepping into the shoes of the old regime. It reluctantly extended for a month a state of emergency that was imposed as Mr Ben Ali fled the country, and which has been applied with some leniency. Chronic unemployment has risen since the revolution. It now pushes 19%, and more in inland regions where tensions continue to bubble. The government has pledged 25,000 civil-service jobs this year, but wants to rethink the public-works schemes that last year's interim government used for barely disguised handouts to the poor. Amid grumblings about food-price inflation, the big supermarket retailers have been persuaded to reduce profit margins on certain staples. The ruling Islamists have also faced challenges from Tunisia's religious right. Radical Salafist groups often take to the streets with noisy demands for such things as the imposition of sharia law. The Ennahda government has firmly rejected them, and says it will more closely monitor dozens of mosques that have fallen under Salafist control. At the same time, party leaders say they have launched a quiet dialogue with the Salafists. This careful balancing act still leaves many secular Tunisians unconvinced. Some speak of creating a new nationalist block to challenge elections next year. But voters may be sceptical: this trend includes politicians and businessmen from the Ben Ali era seeking to make a comeback. Rival entrepreneurial clans meanwhile pledge big job-generating investments, if only the authorities would the lift travel bans imposed last year on more than 400 businessmen suspected of corruption. The Ennahda-led government is doing all right. But to create the hundreds of thousands of jobs Tunisia needs, it still has a long journey ahead.