Tunisian democracy weakened by clashes between president and prime minister

Weakened, Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi struggles to find allies to stay the course in a country where nine different heads of government have already succeeded each other since the 2011 revolution. As the standoff between Tunisian President Kaïs Saied, Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and the leader of the Islamist Ennahda party, Rached Ghannouchi, persists, the scenario of early general elections in Tunisia has become more than ever a likely option, in the face of the political stalemate that has been brewing for some time now.

The legislative elections of October 2019 resulted in a parliament fragmented into a dozen parties and twenty independents. On 26 January, the head of government, Hichem Mechichi, obtained a large parliamentary majority to change eleven of the 25 portfolios -including the interior, justice and health- but the president of the Republic, Kaïs Saied, rejects this on the grounds that he was not consulted beforehand and that five of the new ministers are allegedly involved in corruption and conflicts of interest.

Ennahda accuses Saied, who was elected in a context of rejection of the political class in power after the 2011 revolution, of wanting to extend his prerogatives in defiance of the constitution. Ennahda has formed a coalition government allied with the Islamo-nationalist Al-Karama movement, and the Qalb Tounes party of media tycoon Nabil Karoui, who was released on Tuesday 15 June after more than six months in custody in a money laundering case.

That coalition has been at odds for months with Saied, who was elected after the October 2019 legislative elections that resulted in a parliament fragmented into a dozen parties and a score of independents. The Islamist party Ennahda, which has 52 of the 217 seats in parliament, has been a key player in the negotiations to form a government -the third in just over a year- and has become the main support of Hichem Mechichi's government.

Against this backdrop, President Kaïs Saied put forward the idea of a national dialogue, far from previous formulas, pointing out that the current crisis cannot be dealt with in a "traditional" manner, and announced a meeting as soon as possible so that each participant, regardless of their political affinities, could propose solutions. This could be a first step towards resolving the institutional deadlock that the country has been experiencing since the executive obtained a parliamentary majority last January to proceed with this change of portfolios.

"The president wants an amended version of the country's first constitution voted in 1959," rather than the current constitution voted in 2014, to be put to a popular referendum, the president of Tunisia's powerful national workers' union (UGTT), Nourddine Tabboubi, told The Arab Weekly. Saied also reportedly wants to amend the country's electoral law. However, the president has not confirmed his intention, which is likely to involve a lengthy and complex process if such a mechanism is put in place without results that guarantee a victory.

The 1959 Constitution, adopted under the government of President Habib Bourguiba, established a presidential system of government, while the 2014 Constitution shifts the balance in favour of Parliament and divides executive powers between the president and the prime minister. A return to the 1959 Constitution seems far from likely in view of the negative reactions the idea has provoked among the political class and the confrontation between the president and the prime minister that has been hindering the inauguration of several members of Tunisia's current cabinet.

The Tunisian constitution, adopted after the 2011 uprising and the fall of the Ben Ali regime, has been widely praised as a modernist document. But numerous Tunisian politicians and experts have admitted that it includes many ambiguous provisions and may need to be amended. The assertion by several politicians and jurists that the country needs a shift from a parliamentary system to a more presidentialist regime has sparked much controversy, especially among the opposition to a presidential system, such as the Islamist Ennahda party.

Endemic corruption, political unrest and the country's financial crisis do not help. Although the country has made the most progress, successive governments have been unable to improve the economic situation. The pandemic has further worsened this set of conditions, and the population remains disenchanted with the lack of progress and high unemployment.

In recent days, however, the head of government, who is also acting interior minister, has had to face the anger of the inhabitants of Sidi Hassine, in the western suburbs of Tunis. The death of a young man in unclear circumstances during his arrest by the police and the video of another young man, beaten and stripped naked by the police in the same neighbourhood, provoked a wave of indignation in civil society.

Members of civil society, including the UGTT, the country's largest trade union, have called for a mass demonstration on 26 June to denounce the impunity of the perpetrators and to support the families affected, who, according to the National Union of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT), have been pressured by the police not to give interviews to the media.

According to Efe, around 2,000 young people, including minors, were arrested during the first three months of the year after taking part in the popular protests that spread throughout the country to demand better living conditions and in which one man died as a result of the impact of a tear gas canister thrown by the police.

Since then, the popular municipality of Sidi Hassine Séjoumi, where the two victims are from, has become the scene of nightly altercations between groups of youths and security forces, who resort to the use of tear gas to disperse them. The Tunisian parliament plans to summon the head of government, Hichem Mechichi, for his role as interim interior minister following the death of the young man while in detention and the alleged abuses committed by the security forces against the demonstrators.

Tunisia, which is going through a deep political and socio-economic crisis, has to repay some €4.5 billion of debt this year. Consequently, Tunisia needs an additional 5.7 billion euros to complete its 2021 budget. Its external debt has reached the symbolic mark of 100 billion dinars (around 30 billion euros), or 100 per cent of Tunisia's gross domestic product.

The political paralysis comes at a time when the COVID-19 crisis is weakening an already battered economy that contracted by more than 8 per cent last year, and when foreign lenders and Tunisia's powerful trade unions are demanding that reforms be accelerated, while many Tunisians are increasingly jaded by the government's handling of poor public services and a political class that has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to govern coherently.