how President Kaïs Saïed has imposed an authoritarian turn of the screw for two years

Kaïs Saïed has held Tunisia with an iron fist for two years to the day. On July 25, 2021, the President of the Republic granted himself full powers. He dismissed his Prime Minister, suspended the Assembly, installed a new government and immediately adopted a measure allowing it to govern by decree. In twenty-four months, the Tunisian head of state nicknamed “Robocop” for his looks and his rigid ideas, reshaped the country by operating an authoritarian turn.

This 65-year-old former professor of constitutional law, little known to the general public before his election in 2019, first transformed the Tunisian political system. To do this, he carried out a revision of the Constitution, submitted to a referendum on July 25, 2022, one year after his coup. It was adopted almost unanimously by voters (94.6%), but with a participation rate of only 30.5%. The president can now appoint and dismiss the head of government and ministers as he pleases and, above all, cannot be impeached. “He is setting up a new presidential regime, not to say presidentialist”summarizes Michaël Ayari, analyst for the NGO International Crisis Group.

“Parliament is almost non-existent. It has become a chamber for recording government decisions.”

Michaël Ayari, analyst for International Crisis Group

at franceinfo

To consolidate this presidential regime, “Kais Saïed is working to remove all the checks and balances imagined during the democratic transition that followed the ‘Arab Spring'” in 2011, analyzes Hatem Nafti, essayist and member of the Tunisian Observatory of Populism.

President “brought justice to heel”, he points out. In February 2022, the Head of State dissolved the Superior Council of the Judiciary, an independent body which appoints judges. This decision provoked an outcry from the United Nations (UN), which denounced a “undermining the rule of law in Tunisia”. Then, there was the publication of a decree allowing the Tunisian president to dismiss the magistrates. Nearly 60 have been sacked as early as June 2022.

Muzzling of the opposition and the media

The voice of opponents of the regime has been silenced. “Since February, Kais Saïed has been calling for anti-terrorism legislation to put them in prisondenounces the Tunisian essayist. They are accused of delusional motives: assassination attempt on the President of the Republic, intelligence with foreign powers…” About twenty leading political activists, including the co-founder of the opposition party National Salvation Front (FSN), Jaouhar Ben Mbarek, and the leader of the Islamo-conservative Ennahdha movement, Rached Ghannouchi, were arrested in February as part of an investigation into “conspiracy against state security”. Only two of these opponents were released in mid-July.

“We are facing legal harassment against businessmen, politicians, cited for bogus cases … The climate of fear has returned.”

Michaël Ayari, analyst for International Crisis Group

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Journalists and the media are also in the sights of Kaïs Saïed. Since July 2021, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has documented 21 cases of human rights violations against journalists.

Noureddine Boutar, director of Mosaïque FM, the most listened to radio station in the country, was imprisoned for more than three months, before being released on bail in May. He has always claimed his innocence, claiming to have been arrested because of the editorial line of his radio, with a fairly free tone. “His interrogation, which focused on his editorial choices, is as unacceptable as it is sadly indicative of the repression of the press in Tunisia”hammered Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

“Tunisia has lost 48 places in two years in terms of freedom of expression”, recalls Hatem Nafti. She was 73rd in the RSF ranking in 2021, but 121st in 2023. According to observers, the repression has become widespread since the adoption in 2022 of a law condemning the dissemination of false information to up to ten years in prison. This one “constitutes a threat to the right to respect for private life, because it gives the authorities broad powers to monitor the population’s use of the Internet”accuses Amnesty International. “On social networks, Tunisians no longer have the courage even to put a ‘like’ on a publication that criticizes the power”observes Hatem Nafti.

“Convinced that there are conspiracies everywhere”

How to explain this relentlessness? “Kaïs Saïed is convinced that there are conspiracies everywhere”assures Michaël Ayari. “The conspiracy theory applies to everything”, abounds Hatem Nafti, citing as an example the inflation that hits the daily lives of Tunisians. The rise in prices reached 10.4% in February, its highest rate for more than three decades, according to the World Bank. “The president is convinced that it is because of the smugglers who store food, when in reality Tunisia depends a lot on Ukrainian cereals”whose price exploded in 2022 with the Russian invasion, underlines the essayist.

The country’s economy is at half mast: its debt amounts to nearly 80% of GDP, the average annual growth rate did not exceed 1.7% during the 2010s and unemployment exceeded 15% at the end of 2022, according to data from the French Ministry of the Economy. The International Monetary Fund has offered a loan to Tunis to help it, subject to economic reforms. An agreement brushed aside by Kaïs Saïed, who refuses to submit to these “dictates”. “It is very revealing of his anti-Western and Arab nationalist position”points out Michaël Ayari.

Racist outings and targeted migrants

Westerners, journalists, politicians… Many people are angry with Tunisia, according to Kaïs Saïed. Added to this list are sub-Saharan migrants, persecuted for several months by the regime, particularly in Sfax. This coastal city in the east of the country is the main point of departure for illegal emigration to Europe.

INGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) assured on July 19 that it had collected more than 20 testimonies on abuses which include “beatings, arbitrary arrests and detentions, collective expulsions, dangerous actions at sea, forced evictions, theft of money and personal effects”. HRW reports that a group of 1,200 sub-Saharan migrants were “expelled and forcibly transferred by Tunisian security forces to the borders with Libya and Algeria in early July”.

Kaïs Saïed is far from easing these tensions. In February, the Head of State maintained that illegal immigration was a matter “criminal enterprise hatched at the dawn of this century to change the demographic composition of Tunisia”so that it is considered as a country “african only”. This theory, which is similar to the racist and conspiratorial one of the “great replacement”, was immediately denounced by international NGOs.

“The migration crisis is, once again, seen as a big plot against the country.”

Hatem Nafti, Tunisian essayist

at franceinfo

Despite everything, the vast majority of public opinion follows. “In his supporters, we find many nostalgic for the former leader Ben Ali. They lived under an authoritarian regime, but life was not expensive, public services were good… They say to themselves that by returning to authoritarianism, we will find a good socio-economic situationanalyzes Michaël Ayari. Still others find that the country is not ripe for democracy and that more order is needed.“

It does happen, however, that demonstrators take to the streets of Tunis to denounce the authoritarian drift of Kaïs Saïed. But they are rarely more than a few thousand. As in March when they marched to the call of the country’s main union, the UGTT, to cries of “Freedom, down with the police state!” And “Stop impoverishment!”. Against the treatment of illegal immigrants, mid-July, there were a hundred. To this day, for these despisers of the power in place, “there is no solid counter-proposal, because it is war between the opposition parties”deplores Hatem Nafti.