The Tunisian Presidency, on Thursday (9), invalidated the country’s Constitution, arguing that the current political problem stems from the 2014 Charter. “The way forward is to turn to the people in a completely new and different way”, says the statement from President Kais Saied. “There needs to be a legal solution based on the will and sovereignty of the people.”
By undoing the Constitution, the president of the African country increasingly consolidates his power. In July, he suspended parliament for a month, which was extended until further notice in August.
Upon dissolving the Legislature, he also dismissed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and assumed full powers for the Executive. Tunisia operates under a mixed parliamentary system in which the president has only diplomatic and military functions, and the country is governed by the prime minister. Since mid-year, Saied has ruled by fiat.
The decision was denounced as a coup d’etat by jurists and opponents of the president, in particular by the Islamic party Ennahda, which had the largest bench in Parliament before the dissolution. After the measures, the president did not name a new prime minister or present his plans, demanded by Western allies, political parties and civil society organizations.
In the face of opposition demands, Saied repeated that he acted strictly “within the framework of the law” and the 2014 Constitution, which is now no longer valid.
The suspension was the culmination of a political crisis that has raged this year, with Saied, Ennahda leader and Legislative Speaker Rashed Ghannouchi, and Prime Minister Mechichi in constant conflict, which has paralyzed the government in halfway through the spike in Covid-19 contagions at that time.
In the weeks before Saeid’s measures, still in the middle of the year, the country registered a series of acts against the prime minister and Ghannouchi, also motivated by the mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic. At that point, the president said in a note, to justify his decisions, that “many were deceived by hypocrisy, treachery and the theft of the people’s rights.”
In protest against the president, Tunisians took to the streets, prompting the government to call in military troops to contain demonstrations. Exasperated with the political class, many Tunisians, on the other hand, enthusiastically welcomed Saied’s rulings in the hope that he would take firm action against corruption and impunity.
The president was elected in 2019 as an outsider of the political system, with an anti-corruption speech. But while it enjoys a certain popularity, its measures worried the international community, fearing a return to the authoritarianism of a decade ago, when the Arab Spring, a series of protests that shook North Africa and the Middle East from the beginning of the year, broke out. end of 2010.
The so-called “anti-corruption purge” launched by the president after the July measures has raised concern and fear of a decline in freedoms in Tunisia. Authorities, businessmen, judges and deputies were the target of arrests, travel bans and house arrests without justification by decision of the Ministry of Interior, denounced human rights defenders at the time.
Political parties were among the most affected, notably Ennahda, which was already weakened. Leader Ghannouchi decided to terminate the functions of all members and form a new board “to respond to the demands of the current period with the necessary efficiency”, the legend said in a statement as early as August.
Amid the most serious political crisis of the last decade, the country also has to deal with constant economic problems since the Arab Spring — last year, the economy shrank 8%. Cradle of the movement, Tunisia was considered the most successful example of those revolutions.
On the occasion, the protesters managed to oust then-dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and change the country’s political system, with a new Constitution, in 2014, which established the division of powers between the president, the prime minister and the Parliament.
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