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ABSTRACT
On 25 July 2021, Tunisian president Kais Saied suspended parliament, lifted the immunity of its members, and dismissed the prime minister and the government. Tunisia’s post-revolutionary democracy had thus succumbed to a populist president within two years from his electoral victory in the context of widespread popular disillusionment with the entire political class. This article draws on the work of Peter Mair, in particular his analysis in Ruling the Void (2013), to understand democratic breakdown in Tunisia. I argue that political dynamics in Tunisia diverge significantly from the standard model of democratic backsliding. Instead, I conceptualize the Tunisian case as breakdown by disengagement. The relative success of Tunisian democratization after the 2014 elite compromise paradoxically fuelled a crisis of representation: The main political camps lost popular support, populist challengers were strengthened, and citizens disengaged from conventional politics in ever greater numbers. Popular disengagement and elite withdrawal into a sphere of competition protected by the elite pact gave rise to a void at the heart of Tunisian democracy. While Kais Saied’s anti-party project proposed to fill this void with an alternative political system built from the bottom up, there is growing evidence of authoritarian retrenchment instead of democratic renewal.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 See the announcement here: https://www.webmanagercenter.com/2021/07/25/470927/tunisie-le-president-kais-saied-gele-lassemblee-et-decide-la-designation-dun-nouveau-gouvernement/
2 See the announcement on the Presidency’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=398964232068360&ref=sharing.
3 See the interview with candidate Saied published in الشارع المغربي on 12 June 2019 (https://bit.ly/3DwN8IX), my translation from Arabic.
4 See for example Webdo.tn, ‘Tunisie : Violente bagarre au parlement entre députés d'Al Karama et d'Attayar,’ 7 December 2020, at: https://www.webdo.tn/fr/actualite/national/tunisie-violente-bagarre-au-parlement-entre-deputes-dal-karama-et-dattayar/140745.
5 See Saied’s speech on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysZkBfzoysg.
6 Even though Nidaa Tounes began to disintegrate in 2016, the party remains the strongest modernist party in terms of the number of party identifiers.
7 Or, at least partially, to the fact that more staunchly Islamist voters ceased identifying with Ennahda.
8 Saied himself insisted that he was not campaigning for votes at all, but was engaged in an ‘explanatory campaign’ (حملة تفسيرية), see his interview in الشارع المغربي on 12 June 2019 (https://bit.ly/3DwN8IX), also see Gobe (Citation2022, 14)
9 الشارع المغربي, op cit.
10 Sghaier Hidri, ‘Dangerous Divide Separates Tunisian President, Prime Minister amid Showdown,' The Arab Weekly, 28 January 2021 (https://thearabweekly.com/dangerous-divide-separates-tunisian-president-prime-minister-amid-showdown).
11 The 2014 constitution had mandated the creation of a constitutional court, yet parliament could not agree on the four judges to be appointed by the assembly. As a consequence, the constitutional court remained vacant until the crisis of 2021.
12 الشارع المغربي, op cit.; also see the analysis published on Houloul (Arbi Citation2021).
13 My translation from Saied (Citation2013).
14 See the statement by the Forces of Free Tunisia (Citation2011). The Arabic expression is نظام المحاصصة الحزبية, or system of partisan division (or quotas), which is used interchangeably with the French partitocracie. In these circles, the term is linked to the idea of a counterrevolution in which the political class passed off their own interests as the political expression of the revolution (Dahi Citation2011).
15 See the French text at https://www.jurisitetunisie.com/tunisie/codes/Constitution_2022/const1020p.htm.
16 Even though its members are elected by lower-level assemblies from among their members, not chosen by lot as originally foreseen.
17 See La Presse Tunisie, ‘Législative 2022: Démarrage de l’inscription automatique des électeurs,’ 22 September 2022, https://lapresse.tn/140126/legislative-2022-demarrage-de-linscription-automatique-des-electeurs/.
18 See the electoral commission’s tweet from 29 January 2023 at https://twitter.com/ISIETN/status/1619771934367174656.
19 Middle East Monitor, ‘Poll: Tunisia President Saied popularity drops to lowest levels,’ 25 April 2022, see https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220425-poll-tunisia-president-saied-popularity-drops-to-lowest-levels/.
20 France 24, ‘Tunisian opposition announces alliance against president,’ 26 April 2022, see https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220426-tunisian-opposition-announces-alliance-against-president.
21 See Aljazeera, ‘Tunisia: Anti-gov’t protests take place on revolutionary anniversary,’ 14 Janaury 2023, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/14/thousands-protest-tunisian-president-on-revolution-anniversary.