Tunisians Fight to Save Democracy

AFP

A pho­to from Agence France-Presse(AFP) show­ing clash­es between pro­test­ers and secu­ri­ty forces in Tunisia

PAVIA, ITALY (AFRICA NEWS MATTERS) 

Democ­ra­cy has tak­en a hit in the African nation of Tunisia, once again. This comes 10 years since the Jas­mine Revolution. 

Tunisi­a’s Pres­i­dent Kais Saied con­tin­ues to adopt mea­sures that con­tra­dict his con­sti­tu­tion­al duties. Fol­low­ing elec­tions in 2019, the num­ber of inter­nal divi­sions with­in the par­lia­ment began to grow. Recent­ly Saied act­ed uni­lat­er­al­ly and with­out respect for the con­sti­tu­tion which he pledged to respect when he took office in 2019. In July 2021 he sacked the prime min­is­ter and sus­pend­ed the par­lia­ment. Fol­low­ing dis­agree­ments expressed by 120 deputies gath­ered to respond to the restric­tive mea­sures, the pres­i­dent decid­ed to impose the dis­so­lu­tion of the assem­bly altogether. 

One has to won­der what his true goal is. Saïed appears to be explor­ing all options to pre­vent the tran­si­tion from a pure­ly pres­i­den­tial to a semi-pres­i­den­tial sys­tem. The pres­i­dent appears will­ing to go beyond the dif­fi­cul­ties that arose dur­ing the pre­vi­ous elec­tion cri­sis. Indeed, Tunisia is now being described as an “unfor­tu­nate exam­ple” because of recent mea­sures that have weak­ened con­trol and account­abil­i­ty with­in its sys­tems of governance. 

Mea­sures to Build Trust Not Working 

To re-estab­lish his sup­port among his con­stituents, Saïed made two major promis­es, both of which are expect­ed to be ful­filled by the end of the year. First­ly, he promised “new elec­tions” on Decem­ber 17, the 12th anniver­sary of the Jas­mine Rev­o­lu­tion. Sec­ond­ly, he promised a new elec­toral law and amend­ments to the 2014 Con­sti­tu­tion. In addi­tion, a pop­u­lar con­sul­ta­tion was launched in Jan­u­ary, giv­ing cit­i­zens the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sug­gest how the new elec­toral law should look and what changes to the con­sti­tu­tion should be made.

How­ev­er, less than 6% of Tunisians par­tic­i­pat­ed in the ini­tia­tive a few days before it closed, indi­cat­ing a grow­ing skep­ti­cism between cit­i­zens and the president.

Polit­i­cal Consequences

Saïed, a con­sti­tu­tion­al law pro­fes­sor and so-called out­sider to Tunisian pol­i­tics, has car­ried out what has been described as a ‘con­sti­tu­tion­al’ coup d’é­tat, invok­ing Arti­cle 80 of the Con­sti­tu­tion on the grounds of a feared ‘immi­nent dan­ger to the coun­try. His actions have result­ed in insta­bil­i­ty in the region’s most nascent democ­ra­cy. Alliances are now short-lived and have lit­tle impact. Rela­tions and ties with oth­er par­ties have been severed. 

Accord­ing to the Polit­i­cal Obser­va­to­ry, a polit­i­cal stud­ies research asso­ci­a­tion, by dis­solv­ing par­lia­ment, “Pres­i­dent Saïed has dealt a severe blow to Tunisi­a’s demo­c­ra­t­ic project. Main­tain­ing the exis­tence of the Par­lia­ment clear­ly does not pose a threat to the coun­try’s inde­pen­dence or continuity “. 

From the per­spec­tive of the Euromed Mon­i­tor, the pres­i­den­t’s action is in vio­la­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion: “Pres­i­dent Saied can­not base his deci­sion on Arti­cle 72 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, as this para­graph stip­u­lates that the pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic is the head of the state, a sym­bol of its uni­ty, guar­an­tees its inde­pen­dence and con­ti­nu­ity, and ensures respect for the Constitution.”

A Fight Beyond Politics 

Despite the legit­i­mate con­cerns raised by many, Tunisia has nev­er had a Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court, so it is dif­fi­cult to legal­ly untan­gle what the pres­i­dent has done and con­tin­ues to do.

The coun­try has not seen much progress in the 9 months since the turn to author­i­tar­i­an­ism. The promised rad­i­cal turn­around has not occurred. Most indi­ca­tors remain neg­a­tive, and in some cas­es are worse than they were before July 2020. Cor­rup­tion, one of Tunisi­a’s most seri­ous prob­lems, remains wide­spread through­out the coun­try. Accord­ing to Trans­paren­cy Inter­na­tion­al’s annu­al report on the Glob­al Cor­rup­tion Per­cep­tions Index, Saied’s actions have back­fired on his promises.

COVID-19 also played a role in increas­ing Tunisians’ resent­ment of their own rul­ing class. Despite the strict mea­sures put in place to com­bat COVID-19, such as the nation­wide cur­few, Tunisia has the high­est num­ber of deaths and Covid infec­tion rates in the Arab world and Africa.