The North African republic is threatening a path to dictatorship. This Monday, the people voted on a constitution written by President Kaïs Saïed himself.
The nine million voters were supposed to vote on the new constitution according to the will of their president. But the people in the last democratic country of hope left over from the Arab rebellion are tired. Exactly one year ago, Kaïs Saïed had taken power, which he now wants to concentrate entirely in his hands with his new constitution.
The opposition National Salvation Front has called for a final rally ahead of the referendum last Saturday. Tens of thousands of demonstrators had pushed the peaceful revolution there from 2011. On Saturday, there were at most 2 000 on the steps of the theater of the Bourguiba avenue in Tunis, and a similar number of police stood around them. The night before, there had been clashes with several hundred left-wing demonstrators. A little later, in the square in front of the Clock Tower, two dozen Tunisians were promoting the yes to their president’s project, filming themselves with their cell phones.
Parliament locked out and dissolved
In Tunisia, the issue in July is what remains of the democracy that emerged during the Arab Spring. President Saïed not only replaced the government a year ago, but also locked out and later dissolved parliament. Since then, the wrought-iron gate of the Bardo Palace has been locked. Sharp NATO wire winds around the rusting bars at the entrance to Parliament. Armed policemen stand guard behind the roadblocks.
“That was the right thing to do. Kaïs Saïed has finally cleaned up with the parties, especially the Islamists. They have ruined our state and must go”, says a cook on his way home, referring to the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, which was the strongest force in parliament and provided the first heads of government. What’s probably most worrying would be his certainty when he says he doesn’t know exactly what the new constitution says, but “everyone should cast their vote. It’s about our president”.
Many Tunisians were initially taken with it
Many Tunisians were initially taken with Saïed’s crackdown. They celebrated their head of state. Things could not go on like this, many said at the time. Today, too, they do not want to return to the roller coaster of chaos and stagnation of the past eleven years. But little has remained of the initial enthusiasm, because the president went further and further: The 64-year-old constitutional lawyer dismissed dozens of judges and prosecutors; critical journalists were arrested, and some went to court. Now the democratic constitution, which is only eight years old, is to give way to a hyperpresidential system, it could be called the president’s abundance of power.
The new constitution creates a presidential system without checks and balances, with an all-powerful president, a powerless parliament and an impotent judiciary. It would enshrine one-man rule and trample on the separation of powers. Even the creation of the constitution behind closed doors was a mockery of the rule of law.
The 2014 democratic constitution was hotly debated in public for more than two years until parliament passed it by a two-thirds majority. It is the most liberal in the Arab world. The draft that Tunisians are now voting on was created in just a few weeks. From January to March, they were allowed to submit proposals online. Only a good seven percent of registered voters took part. Among them, a clear majority did not want a new constitution, but preferred to reform the old basic law. Although Saïed is, by his own admission, a supporter of democracy, he did not allow himself to be influenced by the will of the people. He appointed a committee of experts to draft the text. He even excluded the political parties from this dialogue.
Sadok Belaïd, the head of the appointed committee, says that practically nothing remained of the work of his committee, to which he called in renowned experts. Instead, he says, a few days later the president presented his own hastily cobbled-together draft. On July 8, he corrected it in 46 places in a revised version – although the president thus violated the timetable of his own decree on the referendum.
The text, he said, “opens the way to a dictatorship. Ultimately, the head of state can do whatever he wants in the future.” The conservative head of state is also conceding religious powers to himself, he said, because in the future the state is to strive “to realize the goals of Islam.” This could range from the introduction of sharia law to the proclamation of jihad.
Opponents have been accusing the president of a coup d’état for a year. But even the new constitution did not become a wake-up call for the parties. They could neither agree on a joint no vote nor on a boycott. Not even the boycotters, who are in the majority, agree. Some are working with Ennahda Islamists in the National Rescue Front, while members of the National Campaign Against the Referendum reject it.
The divided opposition makes it easy for the president. Even Ennahda is not fighting on the front lines. The Islamists want to avoid the dispute over the constitution becoming a political duel between Saïed and Ennahda chairman Ghannouchi. When you talk politics with Tunisians these days, it often sounds as if Ennahda is to blame for everything that has gone wrong since 2011. In comparison, Saïed, who has never been accused of corruption, seemed almost like an ascetic clean-cut man when he was elected in 2019. Polls show his popularity rising when he sends Islamists to prison, accuses foreign countries of interference, or reports plans for attacks. In addition to that, the pandemic and the aftermath of the war in Ukraine have exacerbated the chronic economic crisis. The country, on the verge of bankruptcy, sources all its grain from the war zone. With the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government is on the verge of concluding a billion-dollar loan that is vital to its survival. But in return, the IMF is demanding that subsidies be cut and the bloated state apparatus downsized.
It seems like some people will go to vote because of the president, not because of the constitution. Because many Tunisians have other concerns than a referendum on political leadership. Many of them are poorer today than they were in the days of long-time ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was forced out of office in 2011. There is great doubt as to whether democracy as a form of government is suitable for overcoming the economic crisis. Unemployment is high, especially among young people. In view of the disputes among members of parliament, many hope for a strong president who will tackle the problems.
Tunisia being a democratic state, the media wrote in the past two days “the Tunisians have spoken for the new constitution by 95% of yes”. But this result isn’t the proof of a united nation taking action in their well being. Only 27.54% voted, meaning a mobilisation of 2.46 million voters out of 9.3 million registered voters. Less than a third of the population actually casted their vote. The fact that about three-quarters of eligible voters – some 6.5 million Tunisians – did not go to the polling stations at all was interpreted by the opposition as a vote of no confidence in the president and his new constitution. Of the few Tunisians who checked “no”, most did so out of fear of a dictatorship, according to the Sigma polling institute. Many more, however, opted for a boycott. It is to be feared that Tunisia will be ruled more and more autocratically. This will further tear the country apart because many still see the Tunisian President as the saviour who wasn’t to shy to attack the Tunisian elites 2 years ago and blindly follow him in his take on power.
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
