What next for Tunisia?
Every autocrat loves performative elections since they know they will win them, of course, one way or another. Unfortunately, this passion for theatrics collides with an aversion to the uncertainty that is typical of inviting the public to voice its conscience via the ballot box.
It is therefore necessary for even the most autocratic regimes to set the stage in such a way that teases an element of opposition, while also ensuring any “opponents” have little or no chance of gaining a foothold, much less mounting a credible challenge to their leadership.
Such are the dynamics now dominating Tunisian politics ahead of next month’s elections, as a Kais Saied “hyper-presidency” begins angling for that bittersweet spot between the illusion of transparency or openness, and the harsh reality of its total usurpation of the North African country’s once bright aspirations.
The odds are that Saied will succeed in using his “invisible hands” to steer the result of December’s polls to his liking and bolster an embattled regime inundated by protests, shortages, woeful public finances and pending mass layoffs under the biting chill of looming austerity measures mandated by the International Monetary Fund.
These are not baseless assertions or alarmist hyperbole, given how the Saied era so far has leaned heavily on a kind of constitutional authoritarian populism to concentrate power in an unaccountable executive.
A few months after a controversial referendum this summer, the regime quickly set about modifying electoral rules such that Tunisia will never again hold free and fair elections. By applying a constitutional veneer to a power grab, a
Sept. 15 election law set the terms of the December polls, which are likely to be very inconsequential in terms of providing the opposition with an opportunity to register its dissent and shift the balance of power.
Not surprisingly, the opposition has elected simply to boycott the December polls, not least because of a reluctance to kowtow to the power-hungry designs in Saied’s demolition and reconstruction of Tunisia’s formal political mechanisms.
After all, the country’s opposition remains fragmented, unable to organize around a singular, convincing anti-Saied platform and capitalize on support from an emaciated middle class that has long since checked out of politics in favor of scrounging for basic commodities. Some have even gone the extra mile to arrange for relatives to brave the Mediterranean waters in search of more promising shores, even though boatloads of desperate migrants have become political spectacles as their passengers are continuously scapegoated for the persistent ills at home before they even set foot on land.
In such a climate, a sustained mobilization of a united opposition front will likely not survive until December.
Hafed Al-Ghwell is a senior fellow and executive director of the Ibn Khaldun Strategic Initiative at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, and the former adviser to the dean of the board of executive directors of the World Bank Group.