Following Sisi’s Path, President Saied Destroys Tunisia’s Democracy

Egyptian and Syrian activists warned the Tunisian people not to remain silent about President Kais Saied's coup against the constitution and his seizure of the "three authorities", reminding them of the fate of their countries after tyranny managed to impose its authority on them.

Some of them advised the people of Tunisia to take precautions and learn the lesson from the experiences of others. The result of the coup of the current president of the Egyptian regime, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, when he was Minister of Defense, against the late legitimate President Mohamed Morsi in 2013, is the big lesson Tunisians should have learned.

Activists also referred to the results of the coup of the Syrian Baath Party in 1963, which was followed by the coup of the late Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad when he was Minister of Defense against President Salah Jadid in 1970, calling on Tunisians to look at the situation in Syria and Egypt after the leaders of the coups managed to control them and kill democracy.

They unanimously agreed that what Kais Saied is doing now in Tunisia similar to what Hafez Al-Assad did 51 years ago in Syria, when he brought together the three authorities in his hand, and became the sole ruler and considered anyone who disagreed with him either an agent or a traitor, and took this as an excuse to put the Syrians in detention, as Sisi is doing today.

Activists appealed to the people of Tunisia to rise up against the coup of Kais Saied and to resist as free agents , rejecting dictatorial decisions and declaring adherence to freedom, and confronting it to preserve democratic gains, stressing that this is a necessity not only for Tunisia but for all the peoples of the region.

 

Who is Kais Saied?

Kais Saied, a 63-year-old independent politician and former constitutional lawyer with an awkward public manner and a preference for an ultra-formal speaking style of classical Arabic, is now at the undisputed center of Tunisian politics.

Tunisian politician, jurist and former lecturer is serving as the President of Tunisia since October 2019. He was president of the Tunisian Association of Constitutional Law from 1995 to 2019. An independent candidate in the 2019 presidential election, he defeated Nabil Karoui in the second round of voting.

Kais Saied described his election victory in 2019 as “like a new revolution” – and on Sunday night he brought huge crowds of supporters onto the streets by sacking the government and freezing parliament in a move his foes called a 'coup'.

Indeed, the most serious danger to Tunisia today is the prospect of an escalating civil conflict that could invite chaos and fragmentation, and/or the imposition of an autocracy dressed up as a strong presidential system. Saied's supporters believe that he has rescued Tunisia. But they may soon find that he has unleashed a hurricane that he cannot control. Tunisia’s fate will ultimately rest on the balance of forces in the streets and on an intense struggle among his advisors, including military and security elites, to push the president to either emulate other Arab strongmen or to put the country back on the path of democracy. There is no middle ground between these two scenarios.

Moreover, the collapse of democracy could create opportunities for jihadists to advance their cause throughout the region. Faced by this danger, both Tunisia's close and distant neighbors, together with Europe and the United States, should offer a comprehensive economic relief package in return for concrete steps that will help Saied honor his promise to protect rather than destroy the country's democracy.

 

Just Like Syrian Destiny

Activists said that Kais Saeid was not ashamed to announce his support for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad despite all his crimes against Syrians.

The journalist Faisal Al-Qasim mocked when he said that in Syria, in 1970, Hafez Al-Assad called his famous coup "the Reformative movement" and since then the Syrian people have lived the bliss and pleasures of the great corrective movement.

He added: In Tunisia, Kais Saied called his coup "constitutional Reform," sarcastically saying: "Live with grace."

Actually, many believe that what Kais Saeid did in Parliament was done by Jamal Abdel Nasser and Hafez Al-Assad before, when they took the ruling chair.

The Syrian "Freedom Youth Gathering" called on the people of Tunisia to compare the free and democratic parliamentary life that the Syrian people lived in before Hafez Al-Assad's coup and how Syria is today, so that they know what they are going to face after Tunisia's coup.

Activists see that Tunisia is in the footsteps of the Baath coup in Syria in 1970, when Hafez Al-Assad overthrew his colleagues who seized power in an earlier coup in 1963, which he falsely called the Reformative Movement. They say that "The real coup man has not yet appeared in person. There is behind the scenes a demon in a military suit who planned and orchestrated this coup, and what Tunisians are currently experiencing is only the beginning, and the second part begins after this coup man brings them to a stage of frustration and despair, through media games.

 

Sisi's Footsteps

Activists urged the Tunisian people not to repeat the Egyptian experience and to submit to the happy coup, unanimously saying that walking the path of democracy is easier than submitting to the consequences of the coup and entering into the cycle of the coup plotters' neglect of the country's wealth, the suppression of the people's freedom and their incarceration. Kais Saeid is following in the footsteps of Sisi, with the support and financing of Satan Bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.

Many believe that whoever came to power through the vote box must leave through the same box, be it Ennahda Movement or Kais Saeid; but not through a coup.

Activists expressed their fear that Tunisia's elites would slide towards what Egypt's elites had been led to do on the eve of Sisi's coup, and their fate would end in prisons and execution.

Indeed, the most serious danger to Tunisia today is the prospect of an escalating civil conflict that could invite chaos and fragmentation, and/or the imposition of an autocracy dressed up as a strong presidential system. Saied's supporters believe that he has rescued Tunisia. But they may soon find that he has unleashed a hurricane that he cannot control. Tunisia’s fate will ultimately rest on the balance of forces in the streets and on an intense struggle among his advisors, including military and security elites, to push the president to either emulate other Arab strongmen or to put the country back on the path of democracy. There is no middle ground between these two scenarios.

Moreover, the collapse of democracy could create opportunities for jihadists to advance their cause throughout the region. Faced by this danger, both Tunisia's close and distant neighbors, together with Europe and the United States, should offer a comprehensive economic relief package in return for concrete steps that will help Saied honor his promise to protect rather than destroy the country's democracy.

 

Constraints Facing the President

Still, if there is reason for concern, Saied and his supporters face enormous constraints that will make it hard for Tunisia to emulate Egypt. To begin with, the Tunisian military has no history of acting as an autonomous political institution capable of managing the economy or a divided political landscape. The police and internal security forces command far greater numbers than the military and also have the means and mission to protect the home front. But these constitute an unwieldy adjunct to a leader seeking to reinvent the country's political environment. Any such leader must ultimately rely on existing or potential political allies, and on a political system that, however battered, represents the only arena through which the president can advance his authority. This will not be easy for a mercurial, second-tier professor of constitutional law who became an elected populist revolutionary steeped in the ethos of anti-politics.

Loathed to create his own party and, like many of his followers, deeply suspicious of the political class, Saied cannot magically build bridges to a world he has long scorned.

Saied's other option is to play the game of divide and rule by exploiting sharp social and identity cleavages. His antipathy toward Ennahda would seem to offer a perfect opening to play this card. But doing so would also carry the risk of encouraging Ennahda's rivals, especially Abir Moussi's Free Destourian Party, to escalate their conflict with the Islamist movement, thus opening up the door to an uncontrollable civil conflict. Moreover, however fractured, many of Tunisia’s elected leaders have already demonstrated that regardless of ideological differences, they are rejecting Saied’s bid to shut down the parliament. Leaders from parties that have been hostile to Ennahda, such as the Democratic Current,2 have denounced Saied by arguing, with considerable cause, that he has misrepresented the constitution in his effort to justify his assault on the constitution.

This effort to invoke the constitution should not be taken lightly. Tunisia's political elite is heavily tilted toward practitioners or scholars of criminal, business, and, most of all, constitutional law. An ethos of constitutionalism has survived for many decades, even during Zine El-Abidine ben Ali's dictatorship. However, full of contradictions and ambiguities, the 2014 Constitution cannot be easily invoked to suit the grand ambitions of President Saied. Indeed, some prominent politicians and NGOs agree with Ghannouchi's defiant assertion, made outside the parliament after he and other MPs were prevented from entering the building by the police, that Saied failed to adhere to the requirements of Article 80 by not consulting with the police, and by seeking to suspend the chamber's activities in direct contravention of that article. Thus, there is a limit beyond which the constitution can be stretched without provoking a backlash across the ideological divide.

Turning to the economic front, it is hard to imagine how Saied's actions will resolve the current stand-off with the IMF, which is insisting on a set of tough economic reforms without in return for a rescue package which the government will be hard pressed to keep state-owned businesses and public services from total collapse. Knowing that an overburdened populace (not to mention the powerful Tunisian General Labor Union [UGTT]) will take to the streets to block these reforms, Saied will probably try to leverage popular anger to compensate for or detract from his own lack of any clear political vision. But populist antics cannot substitute for a serious and practical dialogue about how to face an economic and health crisis that has brought Tunisia to its knees.

 

Rescuing Tunisia

To have this dialogue means demonstrating the kind of temperament and political vision that Saied has not mustered thus far. To be sure, the question becomes: can Saied command the personal elan and political will meet the challenges before him?

The most important and imposing incentive for the president to change is the very real prospect that Tunisia will fall into an abyss of violent internal conflict and endless social chaos. Lacking a political center of gravity, it could become both a failed state and a failed democracy. And if such a dangerous prospect is not enough, perhaps some of Saied's closest advisors might convince him that rather than be the initiator of Tunisia's fall, he might be its savior.

On this score, the path forward might be for Saied to host a national dialogue that would be attended by all the key factions, including the Islamist Ennahda. Although he has floated this idea before, the looming chance of a national calamity might induce him to become the kind of leader that Tunisia desperately needs.

Additionally, key regional states, as well as the European Union and the United States, could play a diplomatically nuanced role in the bid to rescue Tunisia. The key incentive to do so is not only the danger to the country's democracy, but also the very real prospect that radical Islamist forces will take advantage of the turmoil to reassert their influence in that country, as well as in Libya and Algeria. Moreover, the still very fragile progress that Libya has made preparing for next elections in December will surely be squandered if Libyan leaders see in Tunisia’s story a lesson of the utter futility of democratic change. Strange as it may seem, Tunisia is a lynchpin for regional security and thus cannot be allowed to fail.

Any rescue plan will be complicated by the ambitions of Turkey, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, clashing strategic interests in Tunisia have been closely linked to the power struggle in Libya. Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia have already delivered, or promised to deliver, more COVID-19 vaccines and other medical aid. Beyond such, the United States and its Gulf assistance allies must work with international lenders and the IMF to craft an economic program that will protect the most vulnerable groups in Tunisia and ensure that public sector hospitals have the human and technical resources to save lives.

Knowing that they will bear the brunt of illegal immigration flows if Tunisia falls apart, European leaders have good reason to support this multi-dimensional strategy, providing that Saied commits to a politics of national engagement and dialogue. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken made this very point in a July 26 telephone call with the Tunisian president. This will surely not be the last time the Biden Administration will have to urge Saied, as Blinken put it, to “adhere to the principles of democracy and human rights that are the basis of governance in Tunisia.”