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“It’s a prize for all of Tunisia because it’s like an island (of democracy) in the Arab world,” Abdalsatar Ben Moussa, a representative of the Tunisian League for Human Rights, said in 2015. At the time, his organization, together with three others, won the Nobel Peace Prize for the national dialogue that contributed to building democracy after the events of the Arab Spring in 2011.
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Seven years later, however, the situation in the country of 11 million people sought after by tourists is completely different. Tunisians decide in Monday’s referendum on the approval of the new constitution. If approved, it will transform the only fragile democracy in the Arab world into an authoritarian state in which the judiciary and parliament will be largely subordinate to the president.
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A year after the current president, Kais Saíd, suspended the parliament and began to rule by decree, the current parliamentary system is to be changed to a presidential system. The last steps of the head of state testify to where Tunisia was heading in such a situation. In February, for example, he dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council and dismissed over seven dozen judges. Other questionable steps include the abolition of the independent anti-corruption institution and the weakening of the national electoral authority, the Tunisian reporter described to the server Middle East Eye.
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A constitution can lead to a dictatorship
“There is an authoritarian shift: all powers will be in the hands of the president who appoints the government. The executive will not need the confidence of the parliament,” he told the agency AFP political scientist Hamádi Redissi.
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Analysts consider Saïd’s policy in recent months to be a defeat for the democratic movement brought about by the revolution of 2011. It was from Tunisia that pro-democracy protests spread throughout the region. And while in Syria or Libya they ended in bloody civil wars. Tunisians ousted the corrupt dictator Zine Abidine Ben Ali and embarked on the path of democracy.
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But this is where the new draft constitution can end. The paradox is that 64-year-old Káis Saíd, originally a constitutional lawyer, stands behind it. Another lawyer, Sádik Beláíd, whom the president appointed head of the commission preparing the draft of the new constitution, does not agree with its final form. Belaíd stated that the text could lead to a dictatorship after the president’s interventions. “It has nothing to do with the text that we proposed and presented to the president,” he said.
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Political parties that supported Said a year ago when he decided to dissolve parliament, such as the liberal center-right party Afek Tounes, also withdrew their support for the new constitution. Although she relied on a survey a year ago, according to which 85 percent of the population agreed with the president’s assumption of power, now even she thinks that Said has gone too far.
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But the opponents of the new constitution are now divided into two camps – one wants to vote “no”, the other is for a complete boycott of the referendum, because they fear that the vote against the electoral commission will turn into a “yes”. In addition, they claim that the president, who came to power last year through a coup, has no right to announce a vote on the new constitution at all.
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The country is plagued by poverty and unemployment
Saíd excluded opposition parties and non-profit organizations from the preparation of the constitutional proposal. Politicians who criticize him will no longer be broadcast on state television or radio. The president’s main opponent, the head of the Islamist Ennahda party, Rashid Ghanousi, has his bank account frozen, and several of his party officials are facing charges of money laundering.
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Voter turnout is expected to be very low, according to TV Al Jazeera could reach only 10 to 15 percent. Opponents of the referendum held several demonstrations on Friday and Saturday, and the police intervened against one of them on Friday. President Saïd listed this referendum as consultative only, so convinced are his critics that the new constitution will pass regardless of the outcome. The first results should be known on Tuesday morning.
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The overthrow of the dictator Ben Ali after the so-called Jasmine Revolution in 2011 brought democracy to Tunisians, but the country’s economic situation did not improve much. Tunisia is going through a long-term economic crisis, 40 percent of young people are unemployed, and one in three residents lives below the poverty line.
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The approval of the new constitution may bring an end to the dream of those who demonstrated eleven years ago with the hope of democracy. Nevertheless, many Tunisians believe that Kaís Saíd is, on the contrary, the man who will save democracy in their country. Despite the voices of all his opponents on the domestic political scene and abroad.
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