On 25 July 2021, President Kais Saied suspended the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, the Tunisia Parliament. A 1-month curfew was instituted in Tunisia, banning public movement from 7 pm to 6 am, and gatherings of more than three people at a time. He invoked Article 80 of the Tunisian constitution, which gives the President Emergency powers.
Protesters have called this move by Saied a coup, destroying Tunisian democracy, which has only really existed for 10 years. Saied insists that he had acted within his constitutional mandate, and was trying to maintain order. This move follows mass demonstrations and police suppression that has lasted since the beginning of the year.
2021 also marks a decade from the beginning of the Arab spring. The Arab Spring started in Tunisia. Tunisia is considered one of its success stories, where a dictatorship was successfully overturned and a lasting democracy came to be. These protests have brought this into question. The discontent of protesters and the use of emergency powers to suspend the parliament have exposed weaknesses.
Although the country has technically been a democracy, the major fear of the people of Tunisia is that from independence to the Arab Spring, Tunisia has had only two presidents, each lasting decades. The second came to power in a coup where the Prime Minister deemed the former President incompetent.
6. Tunisia before the Arab Spring
Tunisia was a French protectorate. When it became independent, in 1956, it transitioned into a republic by 1959. The first, and for a long time only, President Habib Bourguiba, ruled the country for nearly 30 years. He was part of the independence movements, and had won every election he stood for.
In 1987, Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali declared Habib Bourguiba as medically incompetent and instituted himself as the President. Critics of Ben Ali have called this action a bloodless coup. He had won every Presidential election until 2011, though these elections have been subject to suspicion.
Ben Ali’s rule in Tunisia has been associated with Tunisia’s neo-liberal turn, where public amenities were defunded, and pro-market reforms were instituted. Associated with Ben Ali’s rule are the growth of inequality, corruption in the public sector, and growing frustration with the state.
Courtesy: WorldAtlas
