What Has Become of Tunisia’s Democracy?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottown, PEI] Guardian

On July 25 President Kais Saied of Tunisia removed Hichem Mechichi from his post as the country’s prime minister. The president also announced that the Tunisian parliament would be frozen for 30 days and the immunity of all deputies would be suspended.

The president, a lawyer, said he based his decision on Article 80 of the Tunisian constitution, which grants the president the right to take extraordinary measures if there is imminent “grave danger to the unity, security and independence of the country.”

In assuming complete executive authority, Saied claimed he acted in order to fight the “hypocrisy, treachery and robbery” of the political class. This followed a weekend during which thousands of Tunisians took to the streets in anti-government protests that turned violent.

Protesters stormed the office of the moderate Islamic Ennahda party, Tunisia’s largest parliamentary formation. The head of Ennahda, parliamentary speaker Rached Ghannouchi, held a sit-in protest outside the parliament building. He accused the president of staging a coup d'état.

Tensions started building at the beginning of this year. In January, President Saied refused to endorse ministers named by Prime Minister Mechichi as part of a cabinet reshuffle. The president would not approve their appointment because, he contended, the candidates were suspected of corruption and had strong conflicts of interest because of other positions they held. 

Yadh Ben Achour, a prominent Tunisian constitutionalist who co-wrote Tunisia’s 2014 constitution, criticized the president’s actions. “This is completely unconstitutional,” he told TV channel France 24 in an interview. The constitution outlines a number of conditions that have not been met, he asserted, “notably the formation of a constitutional court, that still doesn’t exist, unfortunately.”

But law professor Rabeh Kraifi is of the opposite opinion. He pointed out to Reuters news agency that “In the absence of the constitutional court the president has the exclusive right of interpretation.”

Tunisia has remained prone to political turmoil in the decade since the 2011 revolution that ousted dictator Zine El Abidine ben Ali.  Ennahda, which won 52 of the 217 seats in the October 2019 parliamentary election, has held sway in the country, ruling in a coalition that has often been in open confrontation with President Saied.

But its support has waned in recent years as the coronavirus pandemic and economic downturn have ravaged the country. The World Health Organization has said Tunisia is facing an “extremely concerning” surge in Covid-19 infections, with only seven per cent of Tunisia’s 11.7 million inhabitants vaccinated. There have been almost 19,000 deaths, and outgoing Prime Minister Mechichi has himself been infected with the virus.

The country faces a widening fiscal deficit and mounting public debt, resulting in discontent over unemployment and inadequate public services. Tunisians are united by their outrage at widespread corruption and smuggling.

According to various estimates, the loss of revenue they cause amounts to more than 50 per cent of the gross domestic product. Unemployment has officially surpassed 17 per cent, but estimates suggest it is much higher, especially among young people. A program for structural reform with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been announced, but it has not yet been completed.

Tunisia’s biggest problem is its external debt, inherited from the former dictatorship. To service that debt, successive governments have been forced to focus on earning foreign currency.

And so instead of growing wheat to feed its population, Tunisia uses its most fertile land and water to grow strawberries for export. And it imports fuel and food to support its tourist industry, even after that was rendered unviable by a number of terrorist attacks a few years back and the current pandemic.

For a decade, Tunisia, where in December 2010 vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire and ignited a set of revolutions across the Mideast and North Africa, became known as the last bastion of the “Arab Spring.”

Ennahda’s shift to Muslim democracy was due to their perceived need to be backed by the new urban middle class in order to rule, while still maintaining the support of the rural and urban poor in order to come to power. This now seems to have failed, and no one knows what comes next.