Tunisia is in a constant search for stability
In 2014, there was widespread talk of a “Tunisian model” for a new political system of government that resulted from a dialogue between four parties representing civil society, and resulted in a constitution approved by the “National Constituent Assembly”, which is the parliament emanating from the first elections after the “uprising of 2011”, and it was dominated by opposition forces. The previous one produced what was known as the “troika rule”, whose failure led to the search for another participatory formula. The “model” was based on a political consensus between the two heads of the modernist and Islamic forces, and was represented by a parliamentary system in which the President of the Republic would have symbolic and limited powers.
This system was able to withstand with difficulty for five years, thanks to the veteran personality of President Beji Caid Essebsi, but it was shaken by his death in 2019, and soon the elections of that year shuffled the cards and brought a fragmented parliament unable to manage the government, and President Qais Saeed who came from outside the parties and the center. politician.
Although most of the parliament’s parties had supported his election, the coexistence between the two parties did not last more than two years. In the legislative elections that took place on December 17, Tunisia returned to before the “uprising of 2011”, which granted it the title of “the cradle of the Arab Spring”. There are those who believe that the new parliament, according to the constitution, will be a sham, whether with its oversight function or with the limited powers that were left to it. Thus, it returns to what it was during the pre-2011 regime or even less, while all powers belong to the president in terms of legislation and implementation.
This change did not come in agreement with the “Quartet” that was crowned with the Nobel Peace Prize (the General Labor Union, the Federation of Industry and Trade, the Human Rights League, and the Bar Association), which was absent from the forefront. Rather, President Saeed played the first role in engineering it, based on a popular base that is still active. And especially to the security and military forces, whose steadfast support for change implied deep indications of their concern about the spread of chaos and corruption.
In his defense of the “extraordinary measures” he took, President Saeed reiterated, during his recent presence in Washington to attend the US-African summit, that he found himself on July 25, 2021 in a state of “civil war”, and therefore he was “forced” to dismiss the government, which is attracted by the parties of parliament and does not Especially the largest of them (the Brotherhood’s “Renaissance Movement” party), and then to freeze parliament and then dissolve it in order to end the “chaos,” and he was also forced to “purify” the judiciary to “cut off the root of corruption.”
However, Western capitals are not comfortable working with a country unless its government is effective, its parliament is vibrant, and it enjoys real popular representation. As Tunisia needs urgent foreign aid, the matter does not depend only on “understanding” the president’s arguments, but rather on criteria, most notably security stability and the efficiency of the government in activating the economy and carrying out the reforms required to obtain aid.
It is agreed that the elections will not change anything in the context of the crisis. On the one hand, there is the legacy of political confusion over the past decade, and on the other hand, there is the thorny economic and social situation, in addition to the repercussions of the tendency to deal with the International Monetary Fund plan. Before 2011, Tunisia witnessed formal political and economic stability that led to the popular uprising, and since then it has been searching for stability.
* Writer and political analyst – London
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