Tunisian resident Kais Saied’s move to ‘freeze’ the activities of the republican parliament and assume executive authority can be labeled as a coup that wipes out the country’s gains since the 2011 revolution. Foreign actors actively influence the situation development; however, public strong support of the Ennahda political party gives grounds to predict radicalization of the situation.
On July 25, public outcry against the government, parliament, and the Islamist Ennahda movement covered many Tunisian cities. The protests in Tunisia themselves have become part of modern political culture. Such a phenomenon was hardly to imagine in the epoch of President Ben Ali who was removed from power during the 2011 ‘second jasmine revolution’.
Demonstrators began clashes with police and security forces demanding the resignation of the government and the dissolution of parliament under old-line slogans such as ‘People want the fall of the regime’ and ‘Dissolve the parliament’. There were calls to destroy Ennahda offices across the country.
The crisis was caused by chronic deterioration of the economics, the government’s failure to handle consequences of the pandemic that hits the national tourism industry hard. Tourism forms 5% of GDP and employs the larger part of population; in 2020 the income dropped by 65%.
Pandemic news also dissatisfies the population. The death toll reaches 21,000 that is pretty high. Tunisian population does not number more than 12 million people. Thus, on COVID deaths Tunisia ranks first in the whole Arab world. The national vaccination is slow since health minister Fawzi Mehdi recently fired.
Tunisia extremely needs the IMF financial assistance though the national external debt exceeds 90% of GDP and public debates about the rationality of new borrowings are still ongoing.
Despite the slow rate of political reforms and the de facto economic collapse (the country’s worst recession since 1956), international research centers used to refer Tunisia to the only country that succeeded in democratic transition. Unfortunately, it’s all about past. The country experienced events undermining the young democracy and the 2014 constitution.
After an emergency meeting with security forces, President Kais Saied approved a decision to take “a set of exceptional measures required by the situation to save the state’. They are the following:
1. ‘Freezing’ the activities of the democratically elected Council of People’s Representatives for 30 days (52 out of 106 seats belong to the Ennahda party).
2. Lift of parliamentary immunity.
3. Removal of Prime Minister Hashem al-Mashishi. and delegation of his functions to President Kais Said.
4. The new Prime Minister and his government will be appointed by the President.
The military stormed government institutions in the downtown of the capital and the national television office. On July 26, Rached el-Ghannouch, the speaker of parliament, was not allowed to enter the building. Rashed Ghannouch came under fire for alleged contacts with Turkey, Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood regarding the war in Libya. Last month the tensions flared following Ghannouchi’s congratulations to Fayez al-Sarraj, the head of Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA), on his recapture of al-Watiya airbase from Khalifa Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army.
In fact, there are all signs of a coup committed by the president who has significantly expanded his powers.
It is quite interesting that last month, El Watan, an independent French-language newspaper in Algeria, cited several Middle Eastern media outlets, including the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi, as reporting that Turkish intelligence had foiled a coup attempt in Tunisia with coordination of the UAE.
In the late of June a new opinion poll in Tunisia has revealed a significant drop in the popularity of President Kais Saied and the leader of the Free Destourian Party, Abir Moussi. There is also a wave of discontent towards UAE and French interference in Tunisian political life. At the same time the Ennahda Movement continues to keep strong support. Thus, the president’s actions allowed overloading the political situation pretty quickly and stopping decline in his popularity.
The conflict between the president and parliament was chronic. Taking advantage of public demand for a strong-handed government it seems that Tunisia’s president is reviving a regime similar to those of Bourguiba and Ben Ali. It was a civil protest that allowed the president to implement this scenario.
Tunisia is likely to wait for more radicalized situation since the leadership of An-Nahda condemned the ‘coup’ against legitimacy, the constitution and the revolution. The party supporters will defend their legitimately elected representatives. An-Nahda leader Rashid Hannushi said the Tunisian people would not return to a period of tyranny. He called on his countrymen to come into the streets and defend revolution. In addition, he addressed the army and special services to join people and ignore the president’s ‘criminal decisions’.
On 12 June 2018, the Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak reported what it was another UAE-backed coup attempt that came from the former Tunisian Minister of Interior Lotfi Ibrahim.
The purported coup, which aimed to seize power and depose the Ennahda party, was foiled by French, German and Algerian intelligence, according to the daily.
The current crisis has an international dimension. The An-Nahda party is closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and focuses on Turkey. According to preliminary data, the UAE and Egypt, whose president speaks out against the Muslim Brotherhood, are behind President Kais Said’s actions.
For example, since 2019 the United Arab Emirates (UAE) provides its long-standing quest to sabotage Tunisia’s democratic transition to exclude Islamists and establish a friendly government. Let us see how Abu Dhabi may manipulate recent chaos. Western observers have often hailed Tunisia as a ‘model’ for transition from dictatorship to democracy following the Arab Spring uprisings, which could inspire further regional democratization. Yet for the UAE and Gulf monarchies, this is a threatening depiction to its vision to redraw the Middle East and North Africa in its own authoritarian, anti-democratic image. The UAE fears that successful reforms and an upsurge of political Islamic factions could trigger calls for change within the UAE’s own autocratic political system. Being backed by its counter-revolutionary partner Saudi Arabia, the UAE began targeting the Ennahda party that formed a government after the 2011 revolution. They also opposed Ennahda for its ties with Qatar and Turkey, which supported the post-revolution government.
In such a way they tried to ‘duplicate the Egyptian scenario’ where Abu Dhabi and Riyadh bankrolled the July 2013 military coup against Mohammed Morsi’s democratically elected government, a model they tried to replicate in Libya and Sudan.
As a result, under chaotic scenario Tunisian crisis can influence the position of the Libyan Government of National Unity led by Abdel Hamid Dbeiba.
