Ahead of Tunisia’s presidential election scheduled for October 6, many Tunisians are taking stock of the past five years under the presidency of Kais Saied. The country remains divided between his long-term supporters, and opponents who say the regime is repressive. Our reporters Lilia Blaise and Hamdi Tlili went to meet voters on both sides of the political divide, from Tunis to Paris.

Tunisia will hold a presidential election on Sunday against the backdrop of a crackdown on dissent and human rights violations committed against undocumented migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

The incumbent, Kais Saied, whose most prominent critics are behind bars, is expected to sail to an easy win after a campaign with few rallies and public debates, marking a significant step back for a country that long prided itself as the birthplace of the Arab spring uprisings of 2011.

Only 11% of the electorate of 9 million voted in December’s local elections. Similarly low voter turnout this weekend would provide a hint of disapproval with Saied’s tenure so far.

Observers say Saied, who has been in office since 2019, has increasingly bent the country’s institutions to his will.

Last year, he ordered a crackdown on undocumented black migrants that drew criticism from around the world, but the EU nevertheless proceeded with a €105m deal with Tunisia to stem irregular migration.

The deal has helped fund security units that, according to a recent Guardian investigation, have been perpetrating widespread sexual violence against women on migration routes in its territory.

In the run-up to the election, the Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE) whittled down an initial longlist of 17 presidential candidates to three after a raft of controversial disqualifications. Of the remaining trio, the former lawmaker Ayachi Zammel was jailed this week for reportedly falsifying documents. It is unclear if his candidature remains valid despite his detention.

Bassam Khawaja, a deputy director for Middle East and north Africa at Human Rights Watch, said: “Since the start of the electoral period on 14 July, authorities have prosecuted, convicted, or detained at least nine prospective candidates.”

Late in September, Tunisia’s parliament voted with an overwhelming majority to strip the courts of the power to reverse decisions made by its electoral body. The vote followed a row between the ISIE and a court that overturned the former’s disqualification of three presidential contenders.

The latest development has made Saied, who will lead for another five years if victorious on Sunday, near unstoppable.

Sarah Yerkes, a senior fellow in the Middle East programme at the Washington-based thinktank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the election would “almost certainly be a low point in the trajectory of what was once the sole democracy in the Arab world”.

After the Arab spring protests ousted the longstanding ruler Ben Ali in 2011, Tunisia was hailed as one of the region’s brightest democratic lights, a reputation boosted by back-to-back elections.

Saied stood as an independent candidate and establishment outsider in the previous election in 2019, campaigning on a platform of strong government after nearly a decade of deadlock between Islamist and secular blocs since the 2011 revolution. The political outsider won by a landslide, with 73% of the vote in a second round runoff with turnout of 58%.

In 2021, he suspended the opposition-controlled parliament and fired the prime minister. The following year, a referendum changed the constitution and gave Saied sweeping powers in a newly introduced unitary system of government. He apportioned to himself the power to appoint magistrates and the seven ISIE members by presidential decree – and fire them at will.

More than a dozen leaders of the leading opposition party, Ennahda, including the former MP Said Ferjani, who was also imprisoned under Ali, were detained. Many remain in captivity.

Khawaja said: “Holding elections amid such repression makes a mockery of Tunisians’ right to participate in free and fair elections.”

Saied’s pursuit of an authoritarian agenda has coincided with downturn in Tunisia’s economic fortunes. Unemployment has risen and inflation is in double digits. According to the World Bank, the country’s economic recovery from years of a cost-of-living crisis and a recession in 2023 has slowed.

Throughout his tenure, Saied has accused civil society and opposition groups critical of his governance of having nefarious motives and being puppets of foreign countries. That line of thinking was echoed by the lawmakers in September, as some even outside the ruling party accused judges of acting on behalf of unnamed foreign interests.

With the coast clear for his re-election, there are fears of more democratic backsliding and populist propaganda efforts in the years to come.

Yerkes said: “By manipulating the 2024 presidential election, Saied has put one more nail in the coffin of Tunisia’s democratic transition and ensured the outcome well before the process began.”

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In separate letters, legislators and advocacy groups ask the administration of US President Joe Biden to do more to protect Tunisian democracy.

Lawmakers and rights groups in the United States are calling on the Biden administration to pressure Tunisian President Kais Saied to stop what they describe as the North African country’s “democratic backsliding”.

In a letter addressed to the top members of the US House of Representatives panel that allocates funds to the Department of State, US legislators have urged Washington to condition parts of the US’s security assistance package to Tunis.

The letter, a draft of which was shared with Al Jazeera, had garnered 12 signatures from House members by Tuesday morning, including Tom Malinowski, who helped lead the effort, Joe Wilson, Adam Schiff, Ro Khanna, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.

“President Kais Saied’s power grab since July 25, 2021 threatens to derail this democratic transition and could usher in another dictatorship in the region or a period of increased unrest and instability,” the letter reads.

“The US position has remained relatively muted as Saied has consolidated control over the executive, legislative, and judicial branches and cracked down on dissent.”

This is the latest push by US legislators to get the administration of President Joe Biden to do more to protect democracy in Tunisia. It comes as the State Department takes its 2023 budget request to Congress, which holds the authority to allocate funds for the executive branch.

The document calls for that State Department funding bill to include language requiring the Biden administration to withhold portions of US security assistance to Tunisia “until and unless” Saied’s government meets human rights standards.

That includes ending the prosecution of journalists and politicians in military courts, removing military personnel blocking the Tunisian parliament building, and ceasing the “repression of fundamental rights of civilians and political and media figures”.

Elected in 2019, Saied froze the Tunisian parliament last year and subsequently dissolved it in March to rule by decree.

While critics decried the moves as a “coup” that risked bringing the country back to the authoritarianism of the pre-2011 uprisings that toppled longtime Tunisian leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Saied and his supporters say his actions are necessary “reforms” aimed at fighting corruption.

Last week, Saied also seized control of Tunisia’s electoral commission and restructured it in a decree that raised fresh concerns about the integrity of future elections, including a July referendum on a new constitution.

On Tuesday, the US State Department said it was “deeply concerned” about the decision.

“A genuinely independent election authority is critical, given its constitutionally mandated role in Tunisia’s upcoming referendum and parliamentary elections,” spokesperson Ned Price told reporters.

“The United States has consistently communicated to Tunisian leaders the importance of upholding the independence of key democratic institutions and ensuring Tunisia returns to democratic governance.”

The Tunisian embassy in Washington, DC did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on Wednesday afternoon.

On Tuesday, 50 US rights groups and Muslim-American organisations sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling on the Biden administration to use its leverage to pressure Saied to “restore democratic order” in Tunisia.

“Tunisians have made hard-won gains over the subsequent decade to establish a long-sought democracy, even as other post-Arab Spring states backslid into dictatorial rule or descended into civil war,” said the letter, which was signed by Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and American Muslims for Palestine, among others.

“But now Tunisia’s delicate democratic experiment is being rapidly reversed after a blatant power grab by its autocratic president Kais Saied.”

The groups said the Biden administration should “match its rhetoric” with action by conditioning aid to the North African country. “We call on the Biden administration to suspend US military assistance until Tunisia is on a path towards democracy,” they said.

The letter also urged Washington to halt $500m in development grants that “requires Tunisia to meet democratic thresholds, until this same condition is met”.

Tunisia has long been seen as the sole success story of the Arab Spring – the 2011 uprisings against autocratic rule that swept across several countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

US aid to Tunisia, including security assistance, rose significantly after the country’s 2011 uprising and the US designated Tunisia as a major non-NATO ally in 2015, cementing the partnerships between the two countries.

But Biden’s proposed budget for 2023, which was released in late March, calls for slashing security assistance for Tunisia to around $61m, down from $121m last year, the Al-Monitor news website first reported earlier this month.

The Biden administration has repeatedly expressed “concern” about Saied’s conduct.

“We have consistently communicated to Tunisian officials that any political reform process should be transparent and inclusive, and undertaken in coordination with a range of political parties, labour unions, and civil society,” the State Department’s Price said after the Tunisian parliament was dissolved last month.

“A swift return to constitutional governance including an elected parliament is critical to democratic governance, and will ensure widespread and lasting support for needed reforms to help Tunisia’s economy rebound.”

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Tunisian President Kais Saied announced that he intends to form a new government in the next few days after suspending parliament and removing the prime minister in July.

The comments, made in an interview broadcast by the Tunisian presidency on Thursday, come after the country’s interior minister announced the appointment of nine senior officials including an intelligence chief, also on Thursday.

Saied said last week that would not allow the attempts to infiltrate the interior ministry to succeed.

He did not give details on this alleged infiltration but the interior ministry has moved to bolster its security capabilities.

Sami Yahyaoui has been appointed head of intelligence, Makram Akid as head of the anti-terrorism apparatus, and Mourad Hussein as director general of public security.

That’s after Saied was on Wednesday reported to have appointed a new director general of national security and a commander of the National Guard.

Three weeks after Saied’s dismissal of Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, which gained widespread popular support, he has not yet appointed a replacement or announced his plans to manage the next phase of his reforms.

Saied froze parliament on July 25, stripping its members of immunity in measures he asserted were necessary to save the state institution after a perceived mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic strife.

The move was criticized by his opponents in the Islamist Ennahda party and abroad as a coup.

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Libya is racing against the clock to hold elections in late December. A July 1 deadline for resolving the constitutional (or legal) basis to hold the elections came and passed. A key meeting of the 74-member Libya Political Dialogue Committee meeting whose January roadmap set the election timeline ended indecisively on July 2. The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), which created the forum, failed to mediate and reach consensus when it was most needed. As of now, there is no agreement on what type of elections will be held (presidential, parliamentary, or both), what type of governmental system Libyans will elect (the content of a constitution), and how the elections will be carried out, among other technical issues. Five months is not a lot of time to resolve these issues. And instead of serving as a role model, Tunisia has now inflamed Libya’s deep polarization.

To Libyans skeptical of a strong presidential system, Tunisian president Qais Saied’s July 25 power grab vindicated their suspicions of what could happened with an elected president even with a strong parliament. Khaled Mishri, the head of the advisory High State Council and the closest thing Libya has to an Islamist official immediately proclaimed, “we reject coups against elected bodies and the disruption of democratic paths.” On the flip side General Khalifa Haftar, Libya’s would-be authoritarian who attacked Tripoli in April 2019 welcomed the “intifada against the Muslim Brotherhood,” and praised “eliminat[ing] the most important obstacle in the way of [Tunisia’s] development.” In other words, Saied’s firing of the government, suspending the Ennahda-led parliament, threatening legislators with prosecution, and prohibiting public assemblies would all be steps that someone like Haftar could take as president against a Mishri-influenced parliamentary bloc.

Although they are neighbors, Tunisia and Libya are two very different countries, and there’s a reason one became the Arab world’s lone exemplar of democracy and the other descended into civil war – or three of them. Tunisia had several advantages off the bat in 2011, mainly functional institutions that prevented the collapse of the state that Libya has not experienced after the devastation of Qaddafi’s 42-year rule. While certainly not perfect, the eventual constitutional compromise made by former president Caid Essebsi and Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi enabled Tunisia’s democratic experiment to proceed through elections and two peaceful transitions of power – an essential test of a nascent democracy. Saied’s surprising 2019 election as a populist independent law professor was the latest example. There’s no way of walking back history, but if Tunisia’s economic malaise and mismanagement and poor response to Covid had been less egregious, Saied may not have had the confidence to suspend parliament under the guise of a popular mandate.

Regardless of the different interpretations of Saied’s actions and the debate of how to preserve Tunisia’s democracy going forward, there is one clear implication for Libya: preparing for elections takes time, especially without a clear constitutional mandate and agreements about the separation of powers and candidate requirements. If elections proceed without resolving these contested issues, the resulting challenges to their legitimacy could be more dangerous than delaying elections themselves.

There is still time to meet the requirements to hold free and safe polling in December, but that time is running out. UNSMIL should immediately reconvene the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum to hash out the remaining issues. That is the appropriate venue to finalize this debate based on UN Security Council Resolutions, which endorsed the group’s initial decision on the elections. If UNSMIL is unsuccessful mediating within this group, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres should step in with other UN resources, including constitutional experts and mediators to close out the final disagreements. The attempt by the HoR to independently determine the constitution and the electoral system is a dangerous distraction that will unlikely produce the necessary consensus.

If it proves impossible to agree on a constitution and electoral system by September, a partial electoral strategy should serve as a back-up. Some Libyans are already advocating the election of a new parliament in December while postponing the presidential ballot until a clearer solution to the constitution exists. A new parliament would then select a prime minister whose government would replace the current LPDF-selected Government of National Unity until the constitution and final elections are agreed. This approach is different from having an elected parliament appoint a president, which was proposed during the lasted LPDF session as means of diminishing a president’s independence and popular mandate. There are certainly downsides to such an approach since it extends the transitional period that continues to plague Libya’s governance. But if the controversial events next door can inform Libya’s democratic aspirations, a more methodical approach at this stage may be safer than a rushed one. Libyans were busy fighting a civil war for most of the last two years, not debating constitutional law. By the end of the year, if a freely elected parliament can assume office, replace the barely-functional HOR and renew legitimacy at least on the legislative front, that would represent major progress. Having a few prominent figures jostle over a potential powerful presidency with unclear power restraints would make Saied’s power-grab look like a minor political scuffle given Libya’s still unsteady ceasefire and the continued presence of internal armed forces and mercenaries .

By Ben Fishman – postsSenior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He served on the National Security Council staff during the Obama administration, including as Director for North Africa and Jordan.

L’article Tunisia’s Crisis Couldn’t Come At A Worse Time – For Libya est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.

In 2011 a repressive, authoritarian government collapsed because it proved unable to meet people’s demands. Why would its return solve anything?

In 2011 Tunisia was the first Arab nation to topple its dictator, and the only one where genuine democracy survives. But events in the capital, Tunis, suggest that the country is experiencing a counter-revolution. On Sunday the president, Kais Saied, fired the country’s prime minister, dismissed the government and froze parliament. Mr Saied has suspended lawmakers’ parliamentary immunity, a pointed warning to political opponents. It is never a good sign when security forces storm television stations. Demonstrations have broken out – with protesters taking to the streets both in support for the president, and against him. The warmth of the Arab spring has definitely turned into the chill of winter.

The opposition – led principally by Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party with the most seats in parliament – called his actions “a coup”. It’s hard to disagree with that description. But many in Tunisia either shrug their shoulders or, even worse, are drawn to demagogues, religious hardliners and those who praise the country’s former dictatorship. The reason that sections of the population are receptive to either apathy or illiberal notions is that freedom and democracy in Tunisia have not delivered political stability and a prosperous economy. Instead corruption, inflation and unemployment persist. For the past few years Tunisians have taken to the streets to express their dissatisfaction, sometimes.

The pandemic has also exposed how dysfunctional the Tunisian state has become. One survey for Tunisia’s National Institute of Statistics found that one-third of households feared running out of food last year. Yet the government, according to leaked documents, appeared willing to eliminate bread subsidies in negotiations for a $4bn loan from the International Monetary Fund, the fourth in 10 years. Anger over the government’s handling of the pandemic has only been made worse by the level of national debt: loan repayments are now six times the size of the country’s health budget.

It is easy to see how the argument could be made that democratic institutions in Tunisia aren’t delivering what the public needs. But a strongman presidential system collapsed a decade ago because it proved unable to meet people’s demands. The dictatorship survived through brutal repression. What Tunisia needs is for the politicians to adopt a more realistic view of where the country needs to go. A return to autocracy will not guarantee regime stability. President Saied defied the constitution to suspend parliament. His inability to work with a prime minister he picked suggests he is not well suited to a complex polity. His praise of the Egyptian military dictatorship does little to inspire confidence.

Tunisian democracy has been a triumph of consensus politics. Yet coalition government has often meant decisions have been put off for fear of shattering alliances. This has led, particularly after the 2019 elections, to rising support for new, more extreme parties as calls for better living standards and social justice went unaddressed. By huddling closer together, elected representatives appear to have encouraged the political instability they wanted to avoid. However, the country is not bereft of wily politicians. Rachid Ghannouchi, the current speaker of the parliament and co-founder of Ennahda, saved Tunisia’s early democratic transition from collapse once before, in 2013. There is a crisis in Tunisia. This will be defused by seeing the emergency for what it is and addressing its causes – not by insisting on anti-democratic arguments well past their expiry date.

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L’article View on Tunisia’s coup: a spring that turns to winter est apparu en premier sur World Opinion | Alternative Média.