The political crisis in Tunisia has been spiraling over the past months with no solution in sight. The reason, in part, is that the country’s constitution, approved in 2014, features complex intertwined interests of the governmental institutions. This situation eventually led to the current conflict between the president, on one side, and the parliament and the government, on the other. In an attempt to resolve the current gridlock, President Kais Saied, on several occasions, called for a radical change of the current political system, while the Islamist Ennahda Movement and its allies fear that they might lose the electoral privileges they have gained thanks to the power-sharing system and the current voting system. The last of Saeid’s calls came up more detailed and within a clearer framework to be shaped by “national dialogue.”

The President’s Initiative

Prior to his arrival at the presidential palace in Carthage, Tunisian President Kais Saied demanded to radically change the political and voting systems, as he saw that the current representative democracy had reached a deadlock and became unable to fulfill the people’s hopes and aspirations. His stand became evident in his direct criticism of the partisan system, and, in particular, the current form of parliamentary procedures, violations by members of the parliament, as well as issues of immunity. 

During a meeting held on June 15 with former Tunisian prime ministers, Saeid candidly announced his call for radical changes to the “current political system and the voting system in effect”, which led to what he described as “division and paralysis of the state’s apparatus.” This time, however, he laid a clear framework for the hoped changes and that is “national dialogue.” Prior to his latest statement, several political forces feared that the president would resort to forced changes based on “supra-constitutional measures” or even “constitutional measures” that would see the president declare “a state of imminent danger” as per Article 80 of the Tunisian constitution, which states that “in the event of imminent danger threatening the nation’s institutions or the security or independence of the country, and hampering the normal functioning of the state, the President of the Republic may take any measures necessitated by the exceptional circumstances.”

This time, Saeid succeeded in imposing his conditions on the agenda of the national dialogue, called for months ago with support from the General Labour Union. Then, it became evident that he does not want to clone the 2013 version of the national dialogue, which succeeded in achieving temporary disengagement between Ennahda and the secular opposition but failed to address the roots of the crisis, which is nature of the political system. President Saied implied this point during his meeting with the former premiers when he said that the dialogue will be conducted for the sole purpose of seeking solutions to problems facing the Tunisians, will not be like previous dialogues and will not be a vain attempt to confer false legitimacy.

A main pillar of Saied's initiative is that the root cause of the political and structural crisis Tunisia is going through is the nature of the hybrid political system, which is semi-parliamentary and semi-presidential and entails sharing of constitutional powers in a complicated way. Accordingly, this power-sharing is what blocks the executive authority from performing its functions, namely running the state and achieving development, and even divides it between a president directly elected by the people and an appointed prime minister. Additionally, the electoral system, which is based on “proportional representation and the approval of the largest remainders.” Because this formula, widely known as the Hare Quota with Largest Remainders (HQ-LR further, further fragments the outcome of elections, the president wants the voting system to be mainly based on individuals, while also changing the constituencies into a form of direct democracy. 

Challenges

There exists a near-consensus in Tunisia about the need for introducing changes to the existing political and electoral systems, but the differences fall within the limits, forms and tools of these hoped-for changes. President Saied goes far in calling for radical changes to fulfill his idea of “direct democracy”, which he has been defending since the launch of his election campaign. Yet a wide segment of partisan politicians, from both the right-wing and the left-wing, support this push for change on the condition that it amends the hybrid political system into a fully presidential or fully parliamentary system as an exit from the dilemma of the complicated power-sharing.  

However, the fact that some of the parties believe in the president’s push for bringing about changes, whether they are radical or partial, to the political constitutional system, is not sufficient. The reason is that, to implement his initiative, the president needs, alongside the consultative framework represented by the national dialogue, to abide by the constitutional procedures set forth to regulate such changes, as stated in the “Amending the Constitution'' section of the Tunisian Constitution. This section gives the proposition initiated by the president of the republic the priority of consideration, but requires approval from two-thirds of the members of the Assembly of the Representatives of the People (the parliament). After such approval is given, the president may submit the amendment to be put to referendum in which case it will be adopted if it receives an absolute majority of votes cast.

Although the president’s popularity, according to a majority of polls, is relatively broad enough to garner a guaranteed outcome of a referendum on amending the system, he certainly cannot guarantee the approval of two thirds of the parliament, in which Ennahda and its allies hold a majority of seats. Additionally, representatives who are not part of the majority coalition in the parliament have reservations on the president’s stands, in general, as well as his plans to change the existing political system. The Free Destourian Party, led by Abir Moussi, defends the need for changing the current political system, but believes that the solution lies in a return to adopting the fully presidential system and not pushing towards a new type of democracy that the president wants to establish. 

Another challenge facing the president’s initiative to change the political and electoral system is the vagueness of his efforts. That is to say, he has not set forth any proposals or clearly defined outline or borderlines for the desired change. Hence several political forces continue to abstain from showing their positions on the initiative. Furthermore, it seems President Saied wants the national dialogue to be the framework for discussing these proposals. He stated, in his meeting with the former prime ministers: “Let us enter into a credible dialogue... to a new political system and a real constitution, because this constitution is based on putting locks everywhere and institutions cannot proceed with locks or deals.” Saied’s statement suggests that he is willing to make concessions in order to reach agreement on the issue of changing the political system. 

Ennahda’s Position

On the other side, Ennahda Movement is the sole defender of the current political system because it is the major contributor to assuming the majority of seats in the Constituent Assembly of Tunisia, or National Constituent Assembly (2011-2014), allowing it to be the largest beneficiary of this system. Historical factors too play a significant role in this position. The Islamist party was involved in a bitter conflict with the state under the totalitarian presidential system over four decades, and still fears the establishment of a new presidential system that can very well put an end to its existence, especially in light of its strained relationship with President Saied.

Yet, the deep political and economic crisis hitting the country pushed Ennahda, which is the major supporter of Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, to spare no effort to engage in any new rounds of the national dialogue to save itself from a potential predicament of being blamed for any failure of the government, as was the case back in 2013, in the wake of a wave of political assassinations which targeted secular opposition leaders. For this reason, it quickly backed the initiative proposed by the General Labour Union early this year. It, however, had to face the conditions set by President Saied about the content and goals of the dialogue. While its media and political networks continued their violent attack on the president for his policies, Ennahda continued to search for some form of compromise with him without any success so far. The aim was to try to revive the process of coming up with new compromises as was the case with ex-president Beji Caid Essebsi. But the dilemma that Ennahda is facing is that it is now encountering a new figure who came to power from outside the frameworks of the traditional Tunisian political class and who does not believe in bargaining. 

Future Trajectories

The outlook in Tunisia seems to be foggy due to high polarization and tensions between the president and Ennahda, backed by the parliament and the government. This would reduce the ability to analyze the future trajectories of the current crisis, as well as the outcome of calls to the national dialogue and the president’s push towards changing the political and voting systems. Based on this, a number of potential future scenarios can be proposed (outlined): 

- All Parties agree to sit at the negotiating table to reach agreement and continue to work towards making partial changes to the political system and changing the electoral system. Such  scenario does not seem to be impossible, especially because of the current critical situation foreshadowing a collapse of the state institutions. There are further signs of rapprochement between President Saied and Speaker of the Parliament Rached Ghannouchi that was mediated by Lotfi Zaitoun, former leader in Ennahda. 

- Early legislative elections as a way out from the crisis. Such elections would be used by each party to test its popularity, and might turn out to be a total game-changer due to the growing popularity of the Free Destourian Party, led by Abir Moussi, and an evident decline in Ennahda’s popularity. 

- Enforcing exceptional constitutional measures. President Saied can declare the stalemate facing the state as “imminent danger”, as stated by Article 80 of the Tunisian constitution, and declare exceptional measures.

- The situation remains unchanged. This scenario is the most dangerous trajectory that the crisis could take. The reason is that the country is already suffering from political, economic and pandemic crises that can push the most affected segments, namely the poor, the middle class and low income people, to take to the streets once again and perhaps reproduce the events of 2011 in a more radical and violent way.