The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Tunisian 'spring' falters

2021-08-02T13:12:37.820Z


The democratic process of the Maghreb country is going through its worst crisis as the president assumes full powers amid social discontent over the crisis


Tunisia astonished the world a decade ago by overthrowing the dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali (who died in exile in 2019) without bloodshed. The death of a fruit vendor, who set himself on fire in despair due to lack of future prospects, sparked a social protest that spread to other countries in the region. In that Arab Spring of 2011, the small Maghreb country of 11 million inhabitants was the only one able to sustain a transition to democracy. However, while the success story of Tunisia was praised from abroad, the country was slowly sinking in the following years, without fuss, in the mud of political stagnation, economic precariousness and the paralysis of the reformist impetus.

Until last Sunday, the president, Kais Said, decided to punch the political board, dismissed the prime minister, Hichem Mechichi, closed Parliament for a month and assumed full powers.

The Tunisian spring, which has inspired the desire for democratization throughout the Arab world, is faltering.

But, even without knowing what will be the outcome of the worst constitutional crisis since the end of the dictatorship - the opposition speaks of a coup - part of the population, fed up with the traditional political class, took to the streets to celebrate it.

More information

  • President Said strengthens his position to seek solutions to the crisis in Tunisia

  • Two deputies arrested in Tunisia and four opponents of President Said prosecuted

“There has not been a clear moment in which things have gone wrong. The current situation is the result of the mistakes of many political and social actors for years ”, estimates the Tunisian political scientist Bechir Jouini. Throughout the post-revolutionary decade there was a first reformist push, with a democratic Constitution, free elections, a truth commission on the crimes of the dictatorship and discussions on equality between men and women, but also warning signs that the things were not going well.

According to the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, an average of a thousand social protests were organized each month, the majority in marginalized regions of the interior.

Cyclically, the anger of the unemployed youth - youth unemployment is almost 50% - spilled over, there were roadblocks and assaults on shops.

After the application of curfews and the dispatch of riot control units, the country returned to a fragile normality.

Another sign of the growing disenchantment was the progressive decline in electoral participation, which fell to 20% in the first free municipal elections, in 2018.

Ten governments in a decade

Join EL PAÍS now to follow all the news and read without limits

Subscribe here

Since 2011, Tunisia has had ten governments and the legislatures of October 2019 gave way to the most fragmented Parliament in its history, with more than 30 parties. Ennahda, the historic moderate Islamist party, is the group with the most MPs, but far from a majority.

“The problem is political Islamism. It has failed here, as it has in other countries. I'm happy because Said will rid us of him ”, comments in the capital Khalil, an engineer in the quarantine, referring to Ennahda, who led the transition together with the secular and centrist Nidá Tunis party after the first free legislatures in 2011. The political tension and the economic crisis has turned into hostility towards the Islamist party in part of the population, which perceives it as the heart of a new

establishment

guilty of all evils. And it is that the political failures that run through the entire region, with the deepest revolving around Islamism, also divide Tunisian society.

“We have a part of the responsibility for the mistakes made.

But we only control the government at the beginning of the transition.

Saida Ounissi, Ennahda MP and former Labor Minister

Saida Ounissi, Ennahda deputy and former Labor Minister, considers the criticisms unfair: “We have a part of the responsibility for the mistakes made. But we only control the government at the beginning of the transition. We have been in all the governments since 2014, but our presence has been a minority ”. For training, the cause of the current crisis must be sought in the 2019 elections. “It was impossible to forge a stable majority of the Government. Then, the confrontation between President Said and Prime Minister Mechichi [an independent technocrat] over their respective competences caused a paralysis at the worst moment, in the middle of the pandemic, ”says Ounissi. Since June, Tunisia has been one of the epicenters of the pandemic, with overflowing hospitals and an average of 200 deaths a day - accumulating more than 586.000 infections and 19,500 deaths.

The roots of the discrediting of the political class go further.

The Parliament is the habitual seat of fights and registers a high rate of absenteeism of the deputies, which has prevented the election of the Constitutional Court, a key institution of the democratic system that has not yet been created.

Added to this is a widespread transfuguismo: up to 87 deputies out of 217 changed parties at least once during the last legislature, some several times.

“In 10 years, these politicians have done nothing at all.

Not 10 bricks have been laid.

They are liars and thieves, ”says Kamel, who runs an old barber shop in the center of the capital equipped with plastic chairs.

More than being a fervent supporter of the president, Kamel supports him as "the lesser of evils."

"It is impossible that his government is worse than the current one," he ditch.

According to a poll for Business News last Wednesday, 87% of Tunisians support the "exceptional measures" of President Said, elected in 2019, despite the questionable use of the fundamental law to claim full powers. “It is worrying that the majority of the population has accepted a clear violation of the Constitution. It can serve as a precedent. I am afraid that now the only brake against a possible authoritarian drift by Said will be Western countries, on which Tunisia is very dependent, ”says the political scientist Jouini.

But frustrations from widespread corruption and a failing economy had built up to mobilization in the streets. On Sunday, hours before the unexpected presidential ordeal, a thousand people demanded the dissolution of Parliament and profound political reforms. A day later, hundreds of militants from Ennahda, Said's main adversary, demonstrated to condemn what they consider a “coup”.

“I trust Said because he is a man of integrity.

It has no economic or social program, true.

But only with some political reforms, things will get better on their own, ”confides Merzuga, owner of a humble canteen that serves keftaji, a local fast food dish.

“We have been ruled by a mafia.

The main thing is to get rid of it.

Said's advisers will already design an economic plan for him, ”says a guest.

However, the opposition is concerned about an authoritarian drift after several deputies were arrested and prosecuted on Friday while Said appointed a new head of the Interior, but not a prime minister.

Towards bankruptcy

The germ of the main malaise is an economy that has been chronically stagnant for 10 years. Promises of prosperity after the fall of the Ben Ali dictatorship soon fell on deaf ears. The context has not accompanied, and relaunch efforts have been insufficient. In 2011, the main trading partner, Libya, was plunged into chaos. More than 100,000 Tunisians returned home to add to the strike. When green shoots were seen, in 2015, a wave of jihadist attacks that left 90 dead, most of them tourists, caused a disaster in the sector. The pandemic has been the last straw.

Meanwhile, in the economic leadership, dominated by a score of families, nothing changed. "Dismantling this system and making it more open required a strong government, with political will, but this never came," laments Aymen Harbawi, an economic journalist for national radio. To buy social peace, the first democratic government, Ennahda, expanded the number of civil servants and today the country spends 16% of its GDP on public salaries. And with an informal economy that represents 40% of GDP and high tax fraud, the accounts do not come out. Tunisia is nearing bankruptcy.

Faced with this scenario, there were few who came out in defense of Parliament after Said froze his activity. As in previous crises, none as serious as the current one, it remains to be seen the reaction of civil society, which has kept alive the most advanced democratic experiment in the Arab world. For their mediation work in the process, four organizations, including the UGTT union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015.


Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-08-02

You may like

News/Politics 2024-03-25T09:34:29.259Z
Life/Entertain 2024-02-19T05:50:30.089Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.