Tunisia after July 25: Meanings and prospects

On July 25th, 2021, in the name of “exceptional measures necessitated by exceptional circumstances” as set forth in Article 80 of the Tunisian constitution, President Kais Saied ousted the government, suspended the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, removed the immunity of parliamentarians, and monopolized state power by decree. The announcement of these sweeping decisions was made on state television. In the wake of the political earthquake, two immediate reactions were apparent: paralyzing surprise among politicians and mass euphoria among much of the populace. What is happening in Tunisia is, by all means, a turning point — a landmark in the history of the Tunisian revolution and in the history of the country’s political practice. 

A turning point breaking a sterile alternation

Over the past decade, Tunisia has been oscillating between deep and broad reactivations of the spirit of the 2010/2011 revolution on the one hand, and doses of the so-called “democratic transition” on the other. Upsurges of revolutionary spirit have mostly taken the form of protest and demand movements in successive waves. As for the “democratic transition,” the process has mostly taken the form of repeated representative elections, as stipulated in the constitution, along with efforts to edify the governing institutions built upon them. Toward such a junction, it is necessary to determine the standpoint from which one’s consideration and analysis can take place. 

On one hand, the events of the past decade can be viewed from above: as a constitutional path toward building representative democracy, establishing the balance of powers, legalizing the functionality of institutions, ensuring the continuity of state bodies and so forth. From this political science perspective, the focus is on the procedural and formal aspects of democracy in a constitutional sense.

On the other hand, what Tunisia has really been going through over the last 10 years can properly be perceived from below. As such, it has been a process of diverse but concerted struggles to grow the capacity of society to express its aspirations and voice its hopes. Waves of revolutionary impulses have had an impact in skewing political practices in favor of those outside the representative political party scene. By contrast, electoral processes have allowed for the distribution of material and symbolic benefits in favor of an increasing number of those who joined the ruling political-administrative class.

What happened on July 25 marked a turning point precisely because it broke this oscillation. There were evident signs — both from the top of the political landscape as well as from below — that this binary fluctuation had reached a stage of sterility and was on the brink of collapse. From above, the election of Saied to the presidency in 2019 upset the existing power balance within the ruling political-administrative class. From below, it is important to note the radicalization of the protest movements and their demands — they became more youthful and detached from political parties, including the traditional left-wing parties, and increasingly linked to popular neighborhoods, as demonstrated by the protests in January 2021 where the youth had a large stake. In this sense, one can understand the label "the wrong generation" —  which was self-chosen by protesting youth — as resentful and dissident. 

Despite the contrast between these two sides of the political landscape, the possibility of interaction and influence between them remained.

The porosity of the political system

In order to discern Saied’s position, it must be remembered in light of his metamorphosis from Saied as a personality (embodying honesty, integrity, correctness), to an idea (the necessity of change), to a project (changing the political system), to Saied as a political program (as the summation result of the necessity of change plus its materialization in a project). His election represented a stark example of the porosity of a political system that allowed an outsider to grab power. His grassroots campaign in the runoff election was almost completely designed, structured, and run by young volunteers gathered in local and regional committees. 

Another sign of the porosity of the political system is the overlapping manifestations of the multipronged crises that Tunisia is going through: a crisis of the social-health care system, a crisis of the political-economic model, and a crisis of a political system plagued by corruption. This threefold crisis made concrete the possibility of intersectional and multidirectional effects of different political variables. Two governments collapsed in the face of the crisis while parliament was entangled in disputes and fragile power balances.

Yet the starkest example of the porosity of the political system was the president’s July 25 chess move, which enabled him to seize exceptional powers.

All of these examples of porosity within political processes, contexts, and levels expose a permeability of the political system that is amenable to the benefit of the readiest actor. In this sense, readiness is the ability to read the political moment carefully and correctly, and to effectively respond and invest in it.  On July 25, Saied proved to be that actor and decided to effect an osmosis that allowed for a tangible political opportunity. Until then, osmosis was working with the logic of “the totality of the social fact,” exchanging influence between social life components and levels interchangeably. 

Dealing with inextricable contradictions 

With his decisive manoeuver, the president resolved the contradiction that had ruled over his own position thus far: being from among the ruling system’s actors who were promoted to their positions via the electoral process and, at the same time, being averse to the electoral process and denying that very system. While resolving this contradiction, Saied wishes to be seen as a reluctant figure, vacillating between revolutionary impulses and phases of “democratic transition,” for the benefit of the former. He reasoned that “the limping democratic transition” had become ineffective, at least, at the parliamentary level. Among his chief arguments is that the parliament had become characterized by chaos and disruption, stalled functionality and violence, and he was thus compelled to root out the corrupt political consensus.

Yet, the president’s authority is not total, and he doesn’t seem to have a free hand either to read the political moment or to invest in it, constitutionally or politically. Formalistically speaking, his detractors repeatedly stress that he never completed a doctoral degree, to which he would respond that he is a professor of constitutional law. As such, since he was elected, Saied has relentlessly fought successive battles over his exclusive right to interpret the Constitution. Among his most solid arguments lies the absence of a constitutional court as stipulated in the Constitution. The Constitutional Court was not established due to unresolved disputes between parties and blocs in parliament. On this legal playing ground, the president is nevertheless constrained in what he can say, aware that he must remain consistent with his self-constructed image as a legal scholar with a sound reputation in matters of constitutional law.

On the other hand, politically speaking, the president is obligated to consider other venues in order to build a political front around him. Several months ago, a number of political parties and groups had already announced that such a front would be the preferred solution in response to the political crisis. Such a front was announced more than once under various titles, such as the President’s Government, the Presidential Front, the Presidential Bloc or the Presidential Coalition. Moves toward forming such a coalition are currently cascading and several political parties have already shown their support for one. Inevitably, the support of the Tunisian General Labour Union remains crucial in forming this front and allowing for its popular depth. Yet, the president knows that this political support alone is insufficient if it is not complemented by a “constitutional consolidation.”

A soft palace coup with three consolidating pillars

At its core, a soft palace coup was mounted on July 25. For it to be strengthened, it appears that Saied ultimately would like this coup to rest upon three pillars.

The first pillar is to have the coup in line with constitutional provisions. Therefore, Saied was keen to declare that he is not outside of constitutional legitimacy. The Tunisian Constitution of 2014 does not specify what types of decisions can be taken in the name of “exceptional measures necessitated by exceptional circumstances” as set forth in Article 80. Saied also bolstered his interpretation of the next paragraph of the same article which states: “These measures shall guarantee, as soon as possible, a return to the normal functioning of state institutions and services.”

Saied also would like his move to appear politically legitimate. In this sense, he has stressed that he is targeting a ruling political class with intertwined corrupt interests and practices that constitute a threat to the country.

The third pillar is popular appeal. The president's political move is intended to appear as a reaction to the masses — a response to a wave of popular anger that generated an unbridled desire for change —  and in that sense, as a legitimate course of action. 

These three pillars were gradually consolidated over the early hours of the coup. Further consolidation came through a combination of acceptance by the timid and partially biased class of constitutional experts, enthusiastic support from the emerging political “president's front,” and broad public backing. 

Politically, there are two groups opposing Saied’s measures. Firstly, there is the front of political liberals who espouse full respect to the constitution in its properly elaborated form and who have often criticized the president’s “populist tendencies.” Then there are those who lost out on July 25 and afterward with the withdrawal of their political privileges. Meanwhile, among the supporters of Saied’s moves are social groups from the urban middle classes with a modernized lifestyle who are eager to socially oppose Ennahda party’s political and ideological views.

While the president’s move is likely to succeed, this success depends upon maintaining momentum and clear popular support while accelerating the “restoration of the constitutional state.” Yet the biggest challenge remains in proving the possibility of legitimizing the “new government” in terms of real change in people's economic, social and health conditions. 

The state-society relationship

There are two outcomes that should be avoided at all costs. The first is that of dictatorship. As Saied dismissed the government and “froze” the parliament, he is currently the sole political actor monopolizing all state power. In such a situation, dictatorial slippage is always to be feared and fought. The second is a return to the pre-July 25 status quo ante — which was a corrupted false democracy and ultimately a reproduction of the pre-revolutionary situation. To avoid these catastrophic outcomes, a roadmap is urgently needed. 

In order to imagine designing a roadmap that properly responds to the situation, we must continue to read what is happening from below, paying attention to society's persistent demands and voices of protest. In this sense, what is happening could then be considered a milestone in the relationship between society and the state. This is already evidenced by the grassroots popular protests and demanding voices that have reached high levels that have never been reached before. 

Over the last decade, the rapport linking social protests and the political opposition has faced major tremors, with the latter creating an increasing mismatch between two competing visions for the future. Meanwhile, for social protests to remain without direct political outlets so that they ultimately do not affect public policy or government planning represent a serious obstacle. But, this doesn’t mean that ways to bring about change are definitely obstructed. In such a context of intense deep and accelerated social upheaval, a contrast between obstruction and openness tends to take root. The more its bifurcations are ignored, the more it becomes intractable to treat. This is especially true when this policing and security-biased treatment is done, as witnessed last month, with transcendent superiority, disdain and deaf ears.

Yet it is important to go back slightly in time, as I tried to do in a text of mine titled “One, Ten, Sixty-Five.” “One” referred to the year of the pandemic, “ten” to the revolution decade, and “Sixty-Five” to the age of the Tunisian postcolonial state. The postcolonial state, since its inception, I argue, “was based on a complete denial of the need to address the issue of social justice.”  In addition, this postcolonial state has had two structural issues that have rendered it unable to give birth to a valuable meaning of life for Tunisians. The first is a lame modernization of the social structures and practices that deludes itself with the idea that the State can shape Society using its supremacy. The second is the development of underdevelopment that promoted illusions ranging from balanced development to humanitarian development, to sustainable development, to cite but a few misleading political slogans. 

In the same text, I argue that the concern of the Tunisian postcolonial state was not to provide the requirements for a decent living and to offer opportunities for creative development of Society's capabilities. The State’s concern was rather to prove its ability to produce the social world, materially and symbolically, and to reconfigure society at its convenience. Accordingly, as the Colonial State Model advocates, the Tunisian postcolonial state built its relationship with Tunisian society upon the priority of monitoring it. It inherited the colonial strategy of tasking authority with overseeing historical collective social identities. This strategy was set up to target tribes, local societies and communities of familiar proximities. 

A society made of communities of familiar proximities is the opposite of the society which the modern Tunisian state sought to shape. This goes back to its pre-colonial phase of the mid-nineteenth century. Indeed, throughout the three phases, the modern Tunisian state sought to make all society’s practices, activities, identities, and history centered around state presence and action. This centrality of the state was based on the primacy of the public domain, the totalitarianism of the apparatus, institutional control, and city dominance over the country, to cite but a few foundational concepts. It was also based on the proper functioning of the market, yet within the limits permitted by the international systems of trade and division of labor.

Thus, for more than a century and a half, the relationship between the Tunisian state and Tunisian society was built on the predominance of the former over the latter. As for the precolonial and colonial phases, prevailing slogans were “civilization” and “enlightenment” borrowed from the “Great Beloved Nations” as the nineteenth century European nation-states were referred to in official Tunisian historiography. As for the postcolonial phase, slogans stressed repeatedly modernization, development, and catching up with advanced nations. Even national liberation slogans, which were central during the first half of the twentieth century, were geared towards the predominance of the state while “building” the postcolonial one.

The 2010–2011 Tunisian Revolution was a crucial historical moment that shook the state’s established predominance over society in a way so profound that it encompassed social structures, leadership philosophies, governance practices, and power relations between the governing and the governed. The most in-depth reading of what has occurred over the past decade is as a succession of tireless attempts to reformulate the social contract chartering the relationship between Society and the State. Considering the repeated failed attempts to achieve these goals, it can be said that what happened on July 25 opened another horizon for reforming the relationship between these two entities.

The model of an independent, democratic, and just social welfare state could be a potential goal of this change, materializing in the reformulation of the social contract. Taking into consideration all the possible variations on this formulation, this independent, democratic, and just social welfare state is the exact opposite of what the Tunisian postcolonial state has represented up until today. I have proposed such a formulation since 2014, considering that the viability of the postcolonial state in Tunisia expired at the end of 2010, as was the case in almost all Arab countries. Nevertheless, its ripples are continuing to this day and are likely to continue for some time. 

Conclusion

If Tunisian social justice forces succeed in steering the country away from both dictatorship and the restoration of the pre-July 25 political landscape, one can argue that a better path for an independent, democratic, and just social welfare state can be forged here and now. Yet, neither real immunity against these two potential catastrophic outcomes nor advancements towards this radiant future can be reached without free, democratic, and open political practices. This is particularly and crucially needed for young people, women, and lower classes in rural and urban areas.

This text is substantially inspired from ideas that I have already expressed in the interview I gave to journalist Rola Sami Sarhan which she published on the Palestinian website “Al-Hadath” on July 26. The original version of the interview is Arabic and is available here. I thank Fatima Radhouani who helped edit the text.