Tunisias fledgling democracy sole survivor of the Arab Spring in crisis as president takes emergency powers

Fethi Belaid AFP/Getty Images Tunisian security officers hold back protesters outside the parliament building in the capital Tunis on July 26, 2021.

CAIRO â€" A dramatic political crisis in Tunisia moved into its second day on Monday, after President Kais Saied fired the prime minister and suspended parliament, in the most serious test to the country’s institutions since its transition to democracy a decade ago.

Saeid’s opponents have decried the move â€" which the president claimed was constitutional â€" as an attempted coup.

By Monday morning, troops had surrounded Tunisia’s parliament and governmental palace. Outside of parliament, the body’s speaker, Rachid Ghannouchi, waited for hours in his car after troops stopped him from entering the building. Ghannouchi, who belongs to the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, is among those describing the president’s move as a power grab.

Demonstrators â€" some in favor of Saied and others who opposed his measure â€" went from shouting verbal insults and threats to throwing stones and hurling bottles of water at one other. Security forces also stormed news network Al Jazeera’s offices in the capital, raising fears over a crackdown on free press.

[Tunisia’s president fires prime minister, dismisses government, freezes parliament]

Saied also announced Monday that the justice and defense ministers would be replaced.

Analysts expressed concern that the president’s decision and the events that have followed reveal the underlying fragility of Tunisia’s nascent democratic system.

The move came amid a months-long political crisis in the country seen as the Arab Spring’s only long-term success story. A major economic downturn and a surge in coronavirus cases have recently boiled over into widespread frustration in the nation of 11 million people.

“It shows that as long as your democracy is not fully installed then there’s always a risk,” said Amine Ghali, director of the Kawakibi Democracy Transition Center in Tunisia.

Tensions have been exacerbated by the fact that Tunisia does not currently have a constitutional court in place, the type of institution that would typically decide whether Saeid’s move was indeed legal under Article 80 of the constitution as he claimed.

Under that article, the president has the right to take certain measures if the country “is in a state of imminent danger threatening the integrity of the country and the country’s security and independence” so long as he has consulted with the prime minister and the speaker of the parliament.

Ghali said he saw Saeid’s interpretation of “imminent threat” as “a little bit over-interpreted.”

“In the absence of this institution [the court], the president finds himself the only interpreter of the constitution and as we see it is now it is backfiring on all these parties who refused [to establish it] for five or six years,” he said.

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Tunisian Presidency

A handout picture provided by the Tunisian Presidency Facebook Page on July 26, 2021 shows Tunisian President Kais Saied onTunis's central Habib Bourguiba Avenue, after he ousted the prime minister and ordered parliament closed for 30 days.

The night before, enormous crowds of Saeid’s supported spilled into the street, backing the president’s move amid hopes it could lead to greater political stability in the coming months. Meanwhile Islamist Ennahda party, called on Tunisians to take to the street in protest. Two other major political parties have signed aligned with Ennahda in opposition to the president’s move.

In a Facebook video on Sunday, former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki said the country had made “a huge leap backward tonight, we are back to dictatorship.”

Other countries urged Tunisians to engage in peaceful dialogue. In a statement, the European Union said it called on “Tunisian actors to respect the Constitution, its institutions and the rule of law.”

“We also call on them to remain calm and to avoid any resort to violence in order to preserve the stability of the country,” the statement said.

In Berlin, Maria Adebahr, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry told reporters they were “very worried” by the developments.

“We think it’s important now to return really quickly to the constitutional order,” she said.

Ahmed Ellalli in Tunis contributed to this report.

Fethi Belaid

AFP/Getty Images

People celebrate in the street after Tunisian President Kais Saied announced the dissolution of parliament.

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