The unravelling of Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution

Tunisian President Kais Saied had dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council on Sunday, after dismissing the government of prime minister Hichem Mechichi and suspending the Assembly of the Representatives of the People last July. Saied, jurist and retired university professor, who has been elected president in November 2019 on an anti-corruption platform and with the promise of improving the electoral system, has set himself as one who will clean up the system that has turned corrupt at several levels across the country where the Arab Spring started and spread to several countries.

Before dissolving the judicial council, the new leader allowed popular demonstration against the forum and observed emphatically and in clear terms, “In this council, positions and appointments are sold according to loyalties. Their place is not the place where they sit now, but where the accused stand.” And encouraging the anti-council protests, Saied liberally remarked, “I tell all Tunisians to demonstrate freely. It is your right and our right to dissolve the Supreme Judicial Council.” The council was set up in 2016 as an independent forum to appoint judges and to maintain an independent judicial system. Saied’s dissolution of the council can be seen as the final act of overturning the system as it exists.

The challenge that Tunisia and Saied face is this: The restoration of the democratic government which has come about as the result of the Jasmine of Revolution of 2011 which had spread to many other countries, especially in Egypt. He must assure as well as ensure that he is not going to be the unbridled ruler because he has dismantled much of the political system. He must prove his claim that he is only cleaning up the existing system and that he would restore the democratic processes. In Tunisia, there are Islamist parties like Ennahda and secular parties like Noda Tounes.

But Ennahda has displayed a pragmatic outlook and had supported Saied in the 2019 presidential election. It is the fallout among the major political parties, Qalb Tounes, that allowed Saied the room to elbow out the government.

It was the economic crisis in the wake of Covid-19 that caused the fragile political coalitions to crash out. The question is whether Saied can handle the economic challenge and ease the hardships that ordinary Tunisians are facing. The difficulties in the lives of the common residents are mounting by the day.  

The Mechichi government comprised mainly technocrats, but they seemed unable to meet the situation of economic distress. Saied had recently appointed Najla Bouden, a geologist and university professor as prime minister.

Whether the two academics, President Saied and Prime Minister Bouden can manage the extremely demanding situation is the key issue. They may win the support of the people if they can restore a semblance of normalcy in the economy.

The anti-corruption rhetoric of Saied will have popular appeal only as long as he can pull the country out of the economic crisis. According to an October 2021 World Bank update on Tunisian economy, there is a stagnation in the creation of jobs in the private sector, and the government wage bill for employees in public sector units has turned unsustainable. The political uncertainty is making the economic crisis worse. So Saied cannot hope to succeed with his clean-up operation if he does not find a solution to the economic problem.

The anti-corruption rhetoric will take him thus far and no further. People need jobs, and it is much more difficult than dismissing the government, suspending the parliament, and dissolving the judicial council. Tunisia is in need of an economic revival strategy and fast.