On July 25th 2021, the tunisian president Kais Saïed decided to dismiss any remaining form of democracy, such as firing ministers, suspending the parliament and closing a news media. Some interpret it as a coup, while the president justify it through the constitution (in case of immininent danger threatening the integrity of the country and the country’s security and indepence, the president may have the monopoly of powers). Even if this justification can and have been debated, it does not make any sense since the 22nd of September 2021, when he announced his decision of not following the constitution anymore.
The creation by the western world of a success story?
Eleven years ago, the Arab spring took also place in Tunisia, where the civil society required democracy and freedoms. Since then, democratic elections, political dialogue and consensus occurred, which placed tunisia in the process of democratization. Therefore, it has been used as cliché by the media and highlighted Tunisia as the only success story of the Arab spring. In addition of creating false expectations it also idealised the truth and, at the end, gave the opportunity to Saïed to orchastrated his ‘coup’. A clear example of this idealisation is the appointment last september of Najla Bouden as prime minister. Indeed, she is the first femal head of government in the arab world. However, her election is mainly symbolic. Bouden’s election is a pure distration to the real plan followed by the president, to grab all powers one by one, which has been congratulated by the US government.
To this undemocratic drift, Europe and the US, which are Tunisia’s largest economic partners, only issued vague statements encouraging the president to go back on the democracy road. This lack of reaction is surprising if one considered the billions of dollars spent in the democratization process of Tunisia by those two actors, but also considering their conditional commercial policy. Nonetheless, even if it was appropriate to cut aid, it would be risky due to the instability in the region and proliferation of extremists. Thus, the US is analyzing a bill, which would reconsider its military assistance and condition it to step taken towards democracy. A more lenient position has been taken by the european parliament, which expressed its deep concern and asked for a clear roadmap of the democratization process.
However, the western world’s pressure does not have much weigh on the tunisian president since he has been supported by Egypt, Saudia Arabia and United Arab Emirates. Nevertheless, their relations are unsure since he declined at last minute his presence to the Saudi led middle east green initiative.
Therefore, the pragmatical option for the western world in order to strive for democracy in Tunisia would be to reprogram their assistance, which normally is destinated to the tunisian government to the civil society groups. Moreover, the US and IMF for example dispose of a carott, which is grants to help Tunisia meet its fiscal needs.
The politicians’ apathy: the reason for the democratization failure
Despite democratical elections, the country’s situation did not improve. Tunisia is still facing a public wage bill of seventy percent of the state’s annual budget, forty-two percent of youth unemployment, and a vast socio-economic inequality between the coast and the urban area.
This apaty is mainly due to the lack of popular support of the former president Essebsi and the main party at the assembly, whose main concern was to preserve elite’s position in politics. As a result, during the protest of the 14th of January 2022, to mark the eleventh birthday of the change, some protested against Saïed but some for him. Indeed, many have enough of the poor governance and the lack of the economic opportunities. They are ready to bet on an authoritairan regime, which promised to make their lives better if all of the powers were at his disposal without any burden. Thus, it demonstrates an ambigous relationship with democracy for the tunisian people, who seems to priviledge prosperity over freedoms.
Nonetheless, the opposition is not ready to give up the fight, despite the new roadmap issued in December 2021 by the president. Indeed, it foresees a constitutional referundum, online consultation and a parliamentary election in december 2022. There is no trace of a presidential election and it would mean that the country will be led as it is today, by one man, without a counter power for a year? The question is now how the opposition will react to it? Will they go with the proposed road map and fight it within it or will they totally reject it? The most realistic plan, taking into consideration the quasi non-action of the western world, is for the opposition and the civil society to get along with the plan and then inside bring changes, step by step, towards the restoration of the tunisian’s intitutions and therefore, democracy.
However, it is not surprising that tunisians are tired of the non-changing situation after they put their trust in the opposition’s party Ennahda for more than ten years, and nothing changed. Moreover, another opponent to the regime is Abir Moussi, also controversial since she was a symapthizer of Ben Ali at the time. She is now coming back and benefits from a good position in the polls. However, her constant rejection of ideas by the government or the opposition and her non-compromising position, led to block the parliamentary work. Therefore, Tunisians are offered three solutions: accept the return of an autoritharian regime, which for the moment is only active to fight corruption, to follow the opposition’s party, which is in place for more than ten years and did not do much and also has ambiguous connection with terrorist’s association, or a former partisan to a strongly rejected regime, not open for dialogue with her opponents.
Bibliography
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Center for strategic and international studies ‘Tunisia’s popular Authoritarian’ <https://www.csis.org/analysis/tunisias-popular-authoritarian> accessed on the 18th of January 2022
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Le Monde ‘A Tunis, des centaines de personnes manifestent contre le président Kaïs Saïed’ <https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2022/01/14/a-tunis-des-centaines-de-personnes-manifestent-contre-le-president-kais-saied_6109510_3212.html> accessed on the 18th of January 2022
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Le Monde ‘En Tunisie, le correspondant du journal „Libération” brutalisé par des policiers lors d’une manifestation <https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2022/01/15/en-tunisie-le-correspondant-du-journal-liberation-brutalise-par-des-policiers-lors-d-une-manifestation_6109623_3212.html> accessed on the 17th of January 2022
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
