Tunisia’s President Kais Saied has announced on Wednesday (30 March) that he is dissolving the country’s parliament, eight months after suspending it in what seemed like a power grab that exacerbated a domestic political crisis.
“Today, at this historic moment, I announce the dissolution of the Assembly of Representatives of the people, to preserve the state and its institutions,” Saied said.
The announcement came after parliamentarians held a plenary session online and voted for a bill against Saied’s presidential decrease that suspended the chamber. Tunisia’s justice minister, Leila Jeffal, asked the attorney general to open a judicial investigation against members of a suspended parliament on charges of “conspiring against state security”, according to local media.
On Wednesday morning, one hundred members of parliament, out of 217, defied the suspension of the parliament by organising a virtual session gathering the key leaders of the opposition parties.
The move reflects the determination of the Tunisian parliamentarians to reshape the current political situation. MP’s voted in favour of a law aimed at cancelling the exceptional measures adopted by the Tunisian President, as, according to the parliamentarians, they constitute an attack on democratic principles and would establish an overly authoritarian power. Some of them, including elected members of the biggest party in Parliament Ennahda, have called for the organisation of snap legislative and presidential elections to overcome the current political and economic crisis.
The move came as the European Union announced this week that it would lend the Tunisian state €450 million ($500 million) to ease the country's budgetary pressures, in addition to an investment of 4 billion euros in the coming years. The North African country is seeking international help to cope with a looming crisis in public finances, exacerbated by the pandemic, and the Ukrainian crisis that has caused a rise in the prices of cereals and fuel, both of which are subsidised in Tunisia.
Kais Saied, won a landslide victory in the 2019 election where he contested against a media mogul who was facing corruption charges. Saied seized full executive power on 25 July 2021 by suspending the parliament dismissing the then prime minister, and ruling by decree in an attempt to reshape the political system. These initiatives prompted accusations of a coup d'état by members of the formerly dominant conservative Islamist party in the Tunisian parliament – Ennahda. They criticise the president's failure to respect the 2014 constitution.
The president and former law professor has defended the constitutionality of his policies, which he says are necessary to repeal years of political paralysis dominated by Tunisia's corrupt elite.
To remedy this situation while remaining in a favourable position for the next elections, the Tunisian head of state came up with the idea of rewriting the 2014 constitution, soliciting the opinion of the people in its construction through an online questionnaire. The new constitution would then be submitted to a national referendum in July before parliamentary elections are held in December 2022.
This constitutional questionnaire did not interest the Tunisian population, which, according to latest figures, only drew a turnout of 6% out of an electorate of 6 million people. The most recent turnout figures are not currently available.
However, according to the still-relevant 2014 constitution, parliament should remain in session during any exceptional period, and the dissolution of the chamber should automatically trigger new elections, which Kais Saied has not announced.
Pressure from trade unions that threaten paralysing demonstrations. Furthermore, most of the major Western donors call on Saied to return to a democratic path, and the economic crisis combined with the lack of interest of a population disillusioned by political tensions deemed irrelevant to their concrete needs, threaten the political longevity of the Tunisian President.
