Tunisia is at a crossroads, abolishing democracy is not a solution

The decisions taken by Tunisian President Kais Saied to sack the government, suspend parliament and impose a curfew have aroused lengthy discussions and debates in various parts of the region and the world, especially in Egypt, which witnessed eight years ago a coup that consolidated the pillars of a military dictatorship that continues to be in place until today.

Perhaps the most prominent of the discussions taking place about Tunisia is the one regarding the constitutional powers of the president and whether they allow him to adopt such decisions. Many liberals and leftists in Egypt avoid the discussion from politics and the relations of power, classes and the crisis in Tunisia and restrict it to the constitutional framework – notwithstanding the importance of this discussion by itself. They argue that Article 80 of the Tunisian constitution grants the president the powers to make such decisions, and therefore, what happened could not be considered a coup attempt against democracy. As such, many turn their eyes away from the political context of these decisions that offer the president, as an individual, dictatorial powers, and they keep searching in the purely procedural aspect. Yet, before anything, if there were an article that consolidates powers in the grip of the president, how can such an article be described as one that upholds democratic rights?

Another debate centres around the role of the army. Many argue also that what happened was not a coup, because in coups usually a decisive role for the army emerges – just as happened in Egypt in 2013, for example. But it would not have been possible for Kais Saied to make these decisions without securing for definite support from the army and the security agencies. How then could such decisions be implemented if they were not supported with a force that enforces them on the ground? The army was clearly present in the theatre and simultaneously with the president’s decisions its troops were deployed to lay siege around the parliament building.

The most significant problem in these debates and in others is that they are driven by an enthusiasm to get rid of the Islamic Ennahda Party, not through the people’s struggle that challenges those in power, including Kais Saied, and the class reaping benefits from the economic policies that cause so much pain to Tunisians, but through finishing off the last remaining aspect of the democratic gains of the Tunisian revolution. The problem with these debates is that, in fulfilling the desire to get rid of the Islamists in parliament, they do not mind reverting to an absolute authority in the grip of the president and essentially closing the door of democracy, assuming that these extraordinary measures by Kais Saied would be the last of their kind and that afterwards the path would be filled with roses for the secular forces.

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This same idea was predominant in Egypt prior and after the July 2013 coup. What happened is now well known to all. The regime began with the Muslim Brotherhood only as a start of unprecedent repressive campaign in order to rid the landscape of any meaningful opposition. We truly hope that this experience will not be repeated in Tunisia.

Over the past years, the Tunisian people have suffered enormously. Unemployment reached 17.4 per cent in the last quarter of last year and public debt rose to more than 70 per cent of GDP. Authorities have been pursuing an economic policy that relies on borrowing from the IMF and acquiescing blindly to its conditions, thus increasing the burden on the shoulders of Tunisians. This is not to mention the devastating effects and the failure to contain the coronavirus pandemic and the catastrophic impact this has had. The policies of the Ennahda Party, its failure, its corruption, its opportunism and its bargaining with the men of the old regime all pushed toward reaching these miserable conditions.

However, the coup attempt against democracy is not a solution to these problems. Rather, it is a principal motivation for deepening them. Kais Saied will not adopt a different economic policy. Now they are offering parliament as a scape goat for the crisis in order for the people to direct their anger against it alone, against elections and against the entire democratic process.

It is not clear yet if Kais Saied, who announced since his election in 2019 that he did not favour a system based on political parties, will complement his measures and decisions in order to attack more of the democratic gains, such as the right to trade unions, and ban demonstrations, sit-ins, freedom of speech and party activities. The battle has not been settled yet, and there are still many areas that may allow building a radically alternative structure that may surpass even the influence of the Ennahda Party itself.

However, the stances of the Tunisian leftist and secularist forces have been mostly either supportive or neutral, calling for “adherence to constitutional legitimacy”, as was stated in the communique of the Tunisian General Workers Union, for instance, without clear or strong opposition, apart from the Communist Workers’ Party, which denounced the coup attempt without taking any practical steps on the ground.

The silence toward these measures that turn against the democratic gains means paving the way for more strikes against the Tunisian political arena and means the future may bring with it similar moves against the media and the parties, and perhaps the trade unions, and others. Yet, what is worse than all of this is the absence, or the silence, or the failure, of the left – foremost among them Ennahda movement – in the battle for democracy, without offering a real and tangible alternative to build a bridge between the struggle for preserving the democratic gains and the struggle to achieve the economic and social demands of the Tunisian people.

This statement was first published in Arabic on 2 August here

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.