Tunisia in overdue constitutional crisis, not coup d’état

Tunisian President Kais Saied’s decision to suspend parliament and fire prime minister Hichem Mechichi set off a long-overdue and unavoidable constitutional crisis rather than a coup d’état in the first representative democracy in Africa and the Arab world.

[President Barack Obama and Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi Oval Office filmed by Capitol Intelligence/Tunisia's Express FM using CI Glass (Google Glass) at Oval Office. May 21, 2015 Express FM Chef de Service Khadija Sfar used CI Glass during Oval Office meeting]

Facing mass protest and general discontent with the Tunisian government handling of Covid-19 lockdowns and stagnant economic growth, Saied on Sunday (July 25) ordered the suspension of parliament, lifting MP immunity and declaring a 30-day state of emergency based on Article 80 of the Tunisian constitution.

The move by Saied was called a “coup d’état” by the founder of the country’s largest political party Ennahda and speaker of the Tunisian parliament, Rached Ghannouchi, and condemned by Tunisia’s largest labor union, UGTT – two voices that are usually in fierce opposition.

Saied’s decree shocked all of Tunisia’s main donor partners and political allies.?US Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement late Monday beseeching the country not to give up its hard-earned democratic gains, while the National Press Club in Washington condemned Saeid for closing Al Jazeera’s offices in Tunisia and the?New York Times opined on the end?of the Tunisian democratic experiment and the Arab Spring.

Tarak Ben Ammar, a Hollywood mogul and one of the three founding fathers of Tunisian multi-party democracy (with Rached Ghannouchi and Tunisian industrialist?Hichem Elloumi), said that his and Ghannouchi’s center-right moderate Islamist party (alla?Italy’s Christian Democrats) feel they have been “duped” by Saied, whom they initially supported as a neutral outsider.

[Nessma owner and Spy Glass Media principal Tarak Ben Ammar speaks to Capitol Intel/BBN using CI Glass following Oval Office meeting between Tunisia Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa and President Barack Obama]

Ben Ammar, whose uncle was progressive statesman and Tunisia’s first president Habib Bourguiba, said that the country’s two closest allies – US President Joe Biden and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi – must use their personal influence to bring all parties back to the table.

In fact on the morning of August 4th, Mario Draghi spoke with President Kais Saied on the" need to re-establish promptly the constitutional order," according to an official Palazzo Chigi of the phone conversation.

Draghi also reminded Saeid the assistance and the support which Italy has offered and will continue to ensure to Tunisia, including the recent delivery of 1.5 million Covid-19 doses.

Saied, a constitutional law professor who ran on a man-of-the-people anti-corruption platform, is the third Tunisian president elected after free and fair elections were instituted in 2011, succeeding Moncef Marzouki and Beji Caid Essebsi.

The root cause of the present crisis in Tunisia was the failure by all political forces to establish a Constitutional Court as mandated by the Tunisian constitution ratified in 2014.

Political infighting since 2014, and most recently in April, has denied the country the proper legal institution to decide if Saied superseded his presidential authority by suspending parliament rather than dissolving it and calling new parliamentary elections.

Under the constitution, the president, parliament, and the judiciary each name four judges to the court, which then needs the approval of parliament and the signature of the president.

It remains unclear whether the country’s highest court, Cour de Cassation, can or will rule on the validity of Saied’s presidential decree.

Questions over Tunisia’s commitment to democracy and rule of law could not come at a worst time for the North African nation or for the strategic geopolitical interests of the United States and Europe.

Tunisia’s economy last year contracted by more than 8% as the Covid-19 pandemic ravished the country’s vital tourism sector, while national debt has ballooned to more than 90% of gross domestic product.

Tunisia’s 2021 budget forecast borrowing needs at US$7.2 billion, including $5 billion in foreign loans. It puts debt repayments at $5.8 billion, including $1 billion due in July and August.

Tunisia is in the middle of critical negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington?for new lending facilities while seeking billions of dollars in private-sector investment guaranteed by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), the US International Development Finance Corporation (US DFC) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

In fact, Tunisian Finance Minister Ali Kooli and central bank governor Marouane Abassi jointly led an in-person delegation in early May to Washington to hold face-to-face meetings with IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva and World Bank president David Malpass.

[Tunisia Finance Minister Ali Kooli speaks with Capitol Intelligence/CI MENA using CI Glass after meeting World Bank president David Malpass during official mission with Bank of Tunisia Governor Marouane Abassi to the International Monetary Fund (MF) and World Bank in Washington, DC on May 5, 2021]

In fact, the current crisis has in effect blocked work on a proposed $500 million deep seaport in Enfidha or Bizerte by the likes of Singapore’s Temasek, Australia’s Macquarie Group and US-based?Bechtel.

American interest in developing a much-needed deep seaport in Tunisia is also part of Biden’s recently announced “Build the World Better” (BW3) scheme, whose aim is to limit encroachment by China’s Belt and Road Initiative by promoting and underwriting US and allied infrastructure investment.

Tunisia is also of critical strategic importance for both Biden and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi as the country acts as the neutral host for multilateral efforts to bring stability to Libya and a key interlocutor for Algeria, the two main suppliers of natural gas to southern Europe.

While Tunisia is a relatively small nation of 12 million, it competes with major Group of Seven countries on innovation and industrial capacity such as being the first nation to make a cross-border sovereign digital currency transfer and the sixth country in the world to launch a commercial satellite into space.

On July 8, Tunisian blockchain and digital currency group ProsperUS, founded by Walid Driss,?executed a digital currency transaction from the Central Bank of Tunisia to the Bank of France, a global first proving Tunisia’s validity as a “regulatory” cryptocurrency sandbox for the European Central Bank and Bank for International Settlement (BIS).

Driss’ pioneering work in developing e-currencies such as the e-dinar won the recognition and small investment from Chicago-based Donald Wilson, a global leader in blockchain and bitcoin transactions through his DRW Trading and Digital Asset concerns.

[Prosperus founder and CEO Walid Driss speaks to Capitol Intelligence/CI MENA using CI Glass on the utliization of digital currency and blockchain in Tunisia and elsewhere during the IMF World Bank Spring meetings in Washington, DC. April 17, 2018]

Regarding Saied’s move, a senior Tunisian Foreign Ministry official said, “This was not a coup.?There is still freedom of the press despite one news outlet being closed, and there is freedom of assembly.?The Tunisian people’s commitment to democracy remains unchanged.”

While tension remains high in Tunisia, there are positive signs that some form of compromise is being reached between Saeid and parliament such as reports that well-regarded former Tunisian finance minister and PWC accounting firm senior partner,?Nizar Yaiche, and Tunisian central bank governor Marounane?Abassi are candidates to replace ousted PM Hichem Mechichi.

The current Tunisian constitutional crisis pales in comparison of the world’s oldest democracy, the United States.?America’s founding fathers’ failure to address the issue of slavery in the US Constitution led to the Civil War and continued social strife to this day.

There is broad and wide bipartisan Congressional support for Tunisia.

The United States signed its first ever bilateral?trade agreement?with the country in 1799 under President John Adams while Ahmad I ibn Mustafa, Bey of Tunis, lectured both President James K. Polk and President Abraham to immediately emancipate all slaves in the United States as he had done in Tunisia in 1846.??

President John F Kennedy greeted Habib Bourguiba?in the White House?during a state visit in 1961, and Barack Obama welcomed president Caid Essebsi to the Oval Office in 2015.??

Maybe the next chief justice of the Tunisian Constitutional Court will be part of the next presidential/government delegation to Washington.