On Sunday, September 26, thousands of people, close to Ennahdha party and its allies, demonstrated in downtown Tunis against President Kais Saied and his latest decision extending his exceptional powers and suspending parts of the constitution. Thousands assembled in front of the National Theater on Habib Bourguiba Avenue from about 10:00 until 16:00 to denounce the recent decisions, which they consider illegitimate, calling it a “coup” and a step back towards dictatorship.
Since the president’s sweeping decisions announced on July 25, Ennahdha member Radwan Masmoudi has waged a media war against Kais Saied. A controversial figure, Masmoudi has long juggled between his activities in civil society and in politics. And this is not the first time that his statements have elicited so much controversy and raised questions about his connections both within and outside of Tunisia.
On July 25th, many Tunisians took it to the streets to protest against the political class and the consecutive failing governments. On the same day, president Kais Saied invoked article 80 of the Constitution. He sacked the head of government, froze the parliament and lifted immunity of its members. Foreign analysts ran to the conclusion that what was happening was a coup and Tunisia’s fragile and nascent democracy was threatened. In this special episode, we’ll go back to what happened on July 25th, its context and the roots of the situation.
Accusations of coups d’etat in Tunisia have multiplied along with the political crises and institutional delays that the country has witnessed over the past ten years.
Sunday’s protests are now better known by the Presidential decisions they seemingly helped prompt: a freezing of Parliament, a dismissal of Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, and the lifting of Parliamentary immunity in what critics of President Kais Saied have called a coup.
In recent months, private polling indicates a surge in popularity for the Free Destourian Party (or Free Constitutional Party, PDL by its French acronym). In many ways the PDL has fashioned itself as a new iteration of Ben Ali and the former regime’s single ruling Constitutional Rally Party (or RCD), of which PDL president Abir Moussi was once Assistant Secretary General in Charge of Women. But when Meshkal/Nawaat went to the PDL headquarters in the Kheireddine Pacha neighborhood of Tunis on March 12 to ask about the party’s rising popularity, they were met by a round, bald man in a dark navy suit: Moussi’s bodyguard.
In recent weeks, political parties have taken to the streets for rallies and demonstrations. The move from parliamentary chambers to downtown avenues follows weeks of unrest in January and February, confrontations between demonstrators and police, mass arrests and torture of detainees, and disagreements between President Kais Saied and Prime Minister (PM) Hichem Mechichi over the PM’s proposed ministerial reshuffle. The new party mobilizations reflects what one Ennahdha party official has called a “sign of crisis.”
Ten years after Tunisia’s revolution, a group of young activists set out to sea, on a route used for irregular migration. As they sail along they discuss some of the most important issues they have confronted over the past decade.
The government led by Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, which was approved in a parliamentary vote of confidence on September 2, 2020, has not yet succeeded in passing any laws that it has proposed to parliament. Nearly 100 days in, the government’s proposed bills have been withdrawn following opposition either in parliament or civil society. Now, as it faces the task of passing a budget, the government’s challenges stem from tensions within and between the coalitions and constituencies holding it up, analysts and political commentators say.
Ten years after Tunisia’s revolution, the Tunisian Statehas still not managed to recover assets held overseas. Despite of the legal arsenal set up for this task, the list of assets recovered still falls short of expectations. Without any apparent regard for the authorities already set up for the job, on October 22 President Kais Saied issued a decree for the creation of a committee within the Office of the President tasked with recovering money and assets held abroad. The initiative has not gone unnoticed.
On September 5, after months of flirting, the Al-Karama parliamentary coalition announced its alliance with the Qalb Tounes party. The two parliamentary blocs finally decided to confess their love in a joint vote of confidence for Mechichi’s government.
« Disinformation as a service » is how the Atlantic Council described the services provided by Tunisian digital communication agency UReputation to presidential candidate Nabil Karoui during his campaign for Tunisia’s 2019 presidential elections. On June 5, the American think-tank published an investigation carried out by its Digital Forensic Research lab (DFRLab) which exposed the collaboration. Dubbed « Operation Carthage », UReputation’s activities targeted 10 African countries to the profit of four politicians running for president in their countries’ elections. Yet another affair revealing Karoui’s dubious practices, who owns UReputation, the Tunisian PR firm with such global influence?
During his hearing before parliament’s Administrative Reform Commission, Tunisian Minister of Industry Salah Ben Youssef presented his excuses to the Tunisian public due to suspicions surrounding a project to manufacture two million protective masks in which a parliamentary deputy was implicated. How to shed light on the affair? And how have parliament and control structures reacted?
Since the announcement of the first cases of Coronavirus on March 2, 2020, Tunisia’s government has taken measures to slow down the epidemic— the curfew, general confinement and telecommuting for certain sectors. Despite their importance at a national level however, these measures do not call into question the responsibility of local authorities in preserving citizens’ health. A responsibility that follows the principle of administrative freedom stipulated in the Code of Local Collectivities. But to what extent have local authorities fulfilled their role in preventing the spread of the virus? Have conflicts arisen with regards to the government’s prerogatives and the powers conferred on the municipalities?
New elections are around the corner, and the monitoring of party financing has yet to catch up. Between political parties incapable of respecting the law and authorities that struggle to sanction them, the trust of a small segment of citizens still inclined to vote could be easily shaken.
As per the official request of prime minister Youssef Chahed, the name of Marouen Mabrouk was removed from the list of 48 Tunisians sanctioned by the European Union for misappropriation of state funds. Unlike other friends and relatives of deposed president Ben Ali who saw their money frozen by the EU, Mabrouk was able to find himself a new political shield to protect his wealth following the revolution that swept the country in 2011. With help from telecommunications company Orange France, he managed to get Tunisia’s prime minister to unfreeze over seven million euros in assets held in EU countries.
Having endured multiple scissions since coming to power at the end of 2014, Nidaa Tounes is all but in pieces. Today, the party is trying to mend its wounds by absorbing the Free Patriotic Union (UPL) and, seven years after its creation, organizing its first elective congress. To this end, a na-tional conference of regional coordinators was held in Mahdia over the weekend of December 21-23, 2018. The event is telling about the banalization of murky relations between the business world and Nidaa Tounes, whose own treasurer is playing the role of party financer.
Author of “Life as Politics : How ordinary people change the Middle East” (2009), Asef Bayat is a sociology professor at the University of Illinois. His latest book “Revolutions without Revolutionnaries” (2017), questions the revolutionnary nature of the Arab Revolutions. He was invited by the Forum Tunisien des Droits Economiques et Sociaux (FTDES) to discuss the possibility of a revolution in a neoliberal context during a conference last month in Tunis. Nawaat met with Bayat to discuss the future of revolutions in a world taken hostage by a dying neoliberal order.
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