Tunisia bracing for ‘a very painful year’
TUNIS, Tunisia — During the predinner rush near Tunis’ port one recent evening, Haji Mourad, 45, the proprietor of a small grocery store on the main road, greeted his customers with a smile and a joke.
They laughed as they paid for their chicken and canned tomatoes. But the humor was of the gallows variety.
“How about if you give us some dollars? And try to get me a visa to America,” he teased a visiting American, before turning serious. “People are worried; they’re scared,” he said. “Everything has gotten so expensive — eggs, meat, vegetables. It looks like there’s a monster coming.”
That monster would be the threat of economic implosion, from which their president, Kais Saied, vowed to rescue the country when he suspended Parliament and began ruling by decree in July, a power grab that threw Tunisia’s decade-old democracy into doubt.
As Saied steers Tunisia toward a national dialogue and constitutional referendum that critics say may cement his authoritarian rule, pressure is growing on him to fulfill his pledge. The question is whether he can.
Already deeply indebted and running a large deficit after years of mismanagement and the pandemic, the government recently announced that it expected to borrow nearly $7 billion this year. For that, Tunisia must turn to international lenders including the International Monetary Fund, which has demanded painful austerity measures. Those could cut into the wages of a broad swath of Tunisians and slash government subsidies just as the price of electricity and basic food items is climbing — a formula that could lead to protests and mass unrest.
“It’s going to be a very painful year,” said Tarek Kahlaoui, a Tunisian
political analyst. “It’s going to be unpopular no matter what.”
International lenders have also urged Saied to return the country to more inclusive, constitutional governance. But when it comes to his political road map, Tunisians are living in uneasy suspense.
A series of what he has described as online and in-person “consultations” with citizens over constitutional amendments, scheduled to begin this month, faces doubts over transparency and security. Members of a commission assigned to draft a new constitution have not been appointed.
The government has yet to start logistical preparations for, or budget for, the constitutional referendum set for July 25. Parliament remains suspended.
Authorities have targeted some of Saied’s critics, prosecuting or detaining several opposition politicians and business people. They have also shuttered opposition news media outlets over what the government said was licensing issues.
On Friday, Tunisian security officers seized and detained Noureddine Bhairi, deputy chair of Ennahda, the Islamist political party that once dominated Parliament and has called Saied’s July actions a coup.
Ennahda officials said Sunday that Bhairi had still not been located and that his health condition was deteriorating. In a letter to Saied, Rachid Ghannouchi, the party’s leader, called on the president to release him or, failing that, to allow a “medical and human rights team” to visit him.
“I very much doubt that the IMF can put a program together as long as there is so much political uncertainty,” Ishac Diwan, an economics professor specializing in the Arab world at Paris Sciences et Lettres, said in an email. “And conversely, a poorly cooked program with harsh austerity will hurt the ongoing (and very important) political process.”