Context and Projected Outcome of the Presidential Coup in Tunisia

On 25 July 2021, Tunisian President Kais Saied dismissed PM Hichem Mechichi, suspended the Assembly, revoked representatives’ parliamentary immunity and assumed executive power himself, pending his direct appointment of a new government. This coup against the constitution followed a day of demonstrations and rioting across Tunisia during which branch HQs belonging to the Ennahda Party were repeatedly targeted. As a result, Saied has been able to present his coup as a move against Ennahda – but in reality, it has far less to do with Ennahda than with Saied’s long struggle with the Assembly over the limited powers of the presidency.

Background

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The crisis deepened again in January 2021 when Mechichi carried out a sweeping reshuffle of the cabinet, dismissing all those ministers close to the president. Saied refused to recognise this reshuffle or to invite the new ministers to take the constitutional oath – despite the Assembly having ratified them in a vote of confidence – on the dubious pretext that some of them were suspected of corruption. This was an unconstitutional move on his part: accusations (and not suspicions) of corruption are a matter for the judiciary and not for the president, and the taking of the oath is in any case a ceremonial matter, not a means of rejecting ministers who have already received the confidence of the Assembly. Nonetheless, Saied doubled down on this break with the government by refusing to ratify a bill modifying electoral procedures – which had passed the Assembly with a comfortable majority – and by declaring himself commander-in-chief not only of the army but of the civilian armed forces (police, national guard, customs officers) as well.

For most of this period, the parties in the Assembly paid little attention to the steady creep of presidential power at the expense of the other institutions. They were not governing themselves – Mechichi oversees a technocrat cabinet – and were busy with their own internecine disputes. The ridiculous behaviour of the anti-democratic old regime holdovers during parliamentary sessions also contributed to a general impression that the Assembly was completely out of touch with the lives of normal people. Saied has exploited this impression by positioning himself as a populist, a man far above petty political squabbles.

Preparations for a presidential coup

Against the backdrop of this escalating struggle between president, government and assembly, posts began to appear on social media calling for demonstrations to be held on 25 July (Republic Day). Posters advocated dissolving the Assembly and of the current cabinet, suspending the Constitution, abolishing the current political system and electoral law, punishing politicians – particularly those from Ennahda – and putting military men in charge of the government during a transitional period to be overseen by Saied. Who was behind this social media campaign was unclear, although it received extensive coverage on Emirati and Egyptian satellite TV. But it is notable that none of these posts called for Saied’s removal along with the rest of the ruling establishment.

Justifications for the coup

Shortly after this speech, the presidency published a list of all the measures taken (with the exception of Saied’s assumption of the office of Public Prosecutor), with the additional detail that the Assembly would be suspended for a period of thirty days. The following day, the Ministers of Defence and Justice and the Prime Minister were formally dismissed, a two-day holiday for government workers was announced (subject to extension), a month-long curfew was put in place and gatherings of more than three people were banned.

The anti-coup consensus

Challenges to the coup

As of this writing, the President has still not named a successor to Mechichi, suggesting that finding a replacement may be proving more difficult than expected. This is perhaps unsurprising given that any new PM will be no more than a deputy to a president who plans to lead the cabinet himself – and given the many additional constitutional pitfalls standing between the president and a vote of confidence for the new cabinet at a time when the Assembly has been suspended.

In the face of this determined opposition, the enthusiasm that had gripped Saied’s supporters in the days following the coup has receded somewhat, and their hopes of using the security forces and the army to quickly dispense with their opponents have begun to fade. So far no arrests have been made, and the security forces have limited their activities to breaking up demonstrations by both sides in front of the Assembly. The army has only deployed around the government headquarters on Rue de la Kasbah and the Assembly building itself, where they barred Ghannouchi and the other deputies from entry on 26 July, citing ‘orders from high command’. In fact, the army has expressed no official opinion on events, although the presence of senior commanders during the announcement suggests that Saied may have secured their consent before acting. Even so, this is no guarantee that they will not ultimately act as they did in 2011 – that is, by standing back and refusing to intervene in political disputes.

Nor are domestic concerns the only potential problems facing Saied. Regional and international factors will also be important in determining whether his coup succeeds or fails. Both the EU and the USA have emphasised the need to solve disputes constitutionally, and this suggests that there is little international desire to put an end to the Tunisian experiment or to accept such a significant threat to the country’s security. The position taken by the USA, the country best placed to influence the Tunisian army, is particularly clear. But the international community alone will not be able to save Tunisian democracy if the country’s political parties and civil society organisations do not unite behind a single and uncompromising position on the coup.

Conclusion

A few days after Kais Saied’s coup, a veritable chorus of voices both inside and beyond Tunisia has risen up to condemn his actions and call for an immediate return to constitutional government. It is clear that if the President is planning to reinstate autocratic government or mimic his Egyptian counterpart he will face many difficulties. It is true that Tunisia is in the throes of a serious economic crisis exacerbated by the failure of its young democracy to fulfil expectations of rapid development. It is also true that partisanship, internecine struggles and the opposition’s desire to bring down the government at any price have deepened public disillusionment with attempts to solve their everyday problems. But none of this justifies throwing away the hard-won democratic gains of the last decade or allowing a president with no significant qualifications to ride roughshod over these gains in the name of a populist discourse that considers itself above politics.

Democracy itself is a solution only to dictatorial government and not to economic and social problems. Solving these is the function of sociopolitical forces and of the institutions of government, which must operate within a democratic system. The only alternative is autocracy, which suppresses freedoms and provides no solution to economic and social problems.