Welcome everyone. My name is Michael Willis, I'm the director of the Middle East Centre here at St. Anthony's College at the University of Oxford,
and it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the Middle East Centre webinar series.
This is a new series of events that will be running occasionally to address
significant issues that have arisen recently in the Middle East and North Africa.
Now, the main purpose of these seminars is to provide a platform for experts on these
issues to discuss and explain what is happening in the region on a particular issue,
and to help put developments in some wider context.
Our first webinar of the year focuses on Tunisia and looks at events that have occurred in the country over the last four months,
particularly since July the 26th. That was when President Kayce Saeed announced he was dismissing the government's suspending
the national parliament and lifting the immunity from prosecution for members of Parliament.
Now, this move was welcomed by many in Tunisia as a much needed shake up of the system but have become corrupt and inefficient,
which in signally failed to deal with both the COVID pandemic and Tunisia's deep economic problems.
On the other hand, there were others in Tunisia who saw the move as a dangerous power grab by the president that threatened to uproot the democratic
system that had been put in place in the aftermath of the popular uprising against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011,
and thus in this way, possibly heralding the end of the one democracy that had been put in place as a result of the
uprisings of what became known as the Arab Spring that year now form nearly four months on.
This debate continues. And to help explain and understand what has happened, we have invited two of the most prominent commentators on an analysts,
the Tunisian political affairs, to discuss this issue.
Our third speaker will be Yusuf Sharif, Yusuf is a Tunis based political analyst and runs the Columbia Global Centres in Tunis,
the North West, North and West African Research Centre of Columbia University in the States.
He's a member of the Carnegie Civic Activism Network and has worked at a number of leading research centres and think tanks,
producing papers and commenting in the media. You regularly see yourself commenting across media in English, French and Arabic.
Yusuf Results of the editor of the book The Modern Arab State A Decade of Uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa,
which came out just this year. Second speakers Dr. and Wolf, who is a fellow at All Souls College here at the University of Oxford.
She is the author of a 2017 book Political Islam in Tunisia The History of Anata, which won the Choice Outstanding Academic Title,
and she's well on my way to a second book based on her PhD thesis, which is entitled Ben Ali's Tunisia Power and Invention in an Authoritarian Regime.
She's forthcoming with Oxford University Press, and so the title we're going to ask and put to both Youssef and Anne is the political
crisis the end of democracy now before I hand over to our speakers and speakers.
I just want to say that we both speakers will be speaking for about half an hour in total.
We then will be turning over to questions and discussion. And if you would like to put the question to our speakers, you're very welcome to do so.
If you're see on the barbecue and a question and answer function on Zoom, if you'd click the back, you can enter your question in the box there.
And then we will go through back and pick out questions and hopefully you'll get your questions.
Asked if we have time in in the session? You're welcome to put your name down or if you're also very welcome to remain anonymous.
Either way is fine by us.
So to please put put it away any questions you have to our speakers and we will discuss it in the second half of the webinar.
So therefore I'm delighted to turn over to our first speaker, Yusuf Sharif, using.
Thank you very much, Michael. Hi, everyone. So I will start with a brief introduction.
Go through the socio economic and political roots of the current crisis,
expand on the situation of Tunisia today and with the international dimension of this crisis.
So to start with, I would say that a decade of democratic transition left Tunisians unhappy about their country's economic and bureaucratic decline,
or how that's how many people perceive the last decade.
They are extremely sceptical of the political and economic elites of the country,
and vocal about what I mean by vocal about it is that thanks to the freedoms gained in the last decade,
Tunisians are allowed to express themselves openly and in the public sphere.
So whatever problems there were and there are many of them, they were amplified and debated by everyone.
This doesn't mean that we should neglect the nature of the problems or the structure of nature.
So it's obvious that Tunisia's economic situation has deteriorated in the last 10 years.
This has affected most citizens. The pandemic only worsen the issues, and in summer 2021, just a few months ago,
a particularly violent way to Tunisia leaving thousands sick, and that this is the background of president.
I say it's July 25th sauerkraut. And here is a short summary of where Tunisia is today.
The president has monopolised most powers. Parliament is suspended and so are important articles of the Constitution.
A number of dubious arrests took place and military units have become more active against civilians.
The president happens to be the country's most popular politician and political entity.
In fact, some think that he's more popular than all other politicians and political parties put together.
So again, here and this nuance is important because with all of this happening,
one has to recognise that he is extremely popular and that when he says that he has the popular legitimacy he's not really like.
Tunisia is under pressure by its traditional partners the US, UK, the EU,
most G7 countries, and it is frequently urged to return to the democratic US presidents.
However, it seems to have a better reputation amongst the Saudis, the Emiratis, the.
But not necessarily strong support. And that will come back to this.
The Algerians, the French and the Italians are also more willing to listen to various views, but also without fully backing him neither.
And most importantly, the country's economic problems haven't ended on July 25th, 2021.
Now, day after day, idealism is being slowly replaced by reality.
The president, who has all the powers, needs to deliver, but he's facing a pile of issues.
And from what we can see, discontent is mounting in the streets.
Now I can go maybe later in the Q&A and see some figures about the economic
problems that that extend the economic problems that the country is going through.
And it's actually if you take if you take a graph between 2010 and 2021, you see very clear decline on all aspects.
So that actually explains why many, so many people feel unhappy about the last days.
Their economic situation really went down.
And because of again, of the freedoms of expression they gained, they can complain about it to each other and see actually the mess in which they are.
And therefore all Tunisians are aware of the big economic problem that the country is going through.
And of course, the first ones to blame are the rulers, the elite political elite, the economic elite.
And again, this is what happened. So there is also a feeling amongst the population that corruption is endemic and that corruption is breeding.
This is, of course, this was the case before 2011, but it continued, and most Tunisians have the perception, at least I do not have.
I don't know if that's true, but at least the perception is that corruption became much more widespread after the revolution after 2011 than before.
So consequently, we see a large section of the population for whom democracy is synonymous with state collapse and by democracy.
I mean the constant problem in political parties, political debates, constitutional, etc.
So think of the Tunisian constitution, but especially in the West,
people praised as one of the most advanced constitutions in the region or even in the world.
And so and so many conferences and so many stories were made about this, this constitution and so many articles, both academic and journalistic.
Then you go and ask Tunisians and they would tell you, No, no, no, no, this constitution is nonsense.
This constitution is useless, and they would tell you about corruption, etc. Again, here I am talking not about all Tunisians,
but a majority of Tunisians and and and and definitely not the supporters of another or of a few political parties,
but a majority of Tunisians school. Today we see them supporting president, both sides.
So these are actually the citizens who celebrated the president's power grab
and who tell you that whatever happens now and whatever happens in the future,
it can't be worse than where the country was three months ago.
But they will tell you that I'm not sure they will say the same thing in three or six months from now.
Now moving from the economic and social situation to the political situation today we see mean all of them are related, obviously.
Today we see the army encircling the parliament and we see the president ruling by decrees.
So we are tempted to describe the situation in black and white democracy versus authoritarianism.
But this is misleading because political parties in Tunisia represent only a few handful of protests,
even in that's that was seen as so powerful and influential proved actually very weak.
When you look on and on July 25th, when you know when the power grab happened,
we haven't seen what we saw in Turkey, for instance, during the failed coup against Erdogan.
We haven't seen and now the partisans in the streets calling for a return of the parliament and so on.
We haven't seen another party since predicting another. So even if not approved,
actually a much weaker political party than most observers and the parliament is actually
home to many employees who are completely disconnected from their constituencies.
And the governments that ruled Tunisia in the last decade were mostly the result
of informal negotiations that had little to do with the elections results.
Just take the example of the last Prime Minister Masisi. He will.
He disappeared for a few days after July 25th. And as far as I know, no one really knew.
For him there were no demonstrations calling for his return.
No, not even a Facebook campaign asking for for him to reappear.
So the political parties and the economy interest groups that have controlled Tunisian politics during the last decade,
they ignored the fact that election after election year after year,
the number of voters decreased and the number of those polled and claiming that they feel underrepresented by the political class continued to grow.
And this is a reminder that the country was actually facing a major crisis of legitimacy and political legitimacy.
On July 25th, when the president decided to act now.
Does it mean that the president has more legitimacy than those? Not necessarily.
The president is extremely popular today, but that's because the ruling clique, he is widely hated.
And also because Tunisia was suffering from the COVID pandemic this summer,
as I mentioned earlier and in the vaccine scheme by the end of July and in August.
So in the perception of many Tunisians side, you see President Sign, it is seen as the one who brought the vaccines and who saved lives.
But I think once the euphoria is over, once the economic realities of the country come to the fore,
the president himself will have to confront the fact that he'd like to see this and this
doesn't have any real constituency and that his legitimacy may vanish in a matter of days.
So now going to Tunisia today to legitimise his move,
president side uses the populist narrative of speaking in the name of the people and acting for the people.
And as I said, he's indeed very so.
In the last three months, there were a number of actions that were taken with the umbrella of being taken in the name of the people.
So a lot of dormant corruption cases were reopened.
Several and politicians and businessmen face trial or are in jail, and actually many of these trials were shelved or postponed.
In the last decade, because of political settlements and after a few weeks, I mean, for a few weeks after his power grab,
there were travel bans imposed on many politicians and businessmen without further explanation.
It was somewhat arbitrary. But by the way, they were released, assistant foreign criticism is came into the country by the president supporters.
So this is the atmosphere, actually. Also recent just recently there is a group called Eunice's against the coup.
They wanted to set up a press conference and then they were told that they cannot hold a press conference.
These days, there is a garbage crisis in something Tunisia and its facts around facts.
And the response of the president was to send in the police, which used teargas.
Actually, this was the first test of a side to face an angry mob.
And he reacted. Just like his predecessors. So there are a lot of troubles happening now in the country,
and the demonstrations are expected to continue and to increase over time whether
side will continue to refuse dialogue and use the police to find that information.
We still don't know. Now on on a slightly more positive note, we see that there is a civilian government that was just appointed,
not security government and not then not a government that responds to political whims of this or that group.
We see also that there are no attacks in the country. I mean, again, compare with Egypt in 2014.
You can compare it on barely no immediate or very serious threat to the freedom of expression.
You know, for instance, the day after the Al-Jazeera offices were raided,
but Al Jazeera journalists are free to operate and broadcast live from Tunisia.
The Tunisians against the coup were not able to sustain their press conference in the hall.
They were able to do it in the streets,
and they actually got more publicity because they were in the street and cameras were filming and it was Typekit, Facebook and so on.
There are regular empty side demonstrations organised in the country,
and usually today the main labour union has resumed its strikes and demonstrations without being harassed.
So to answer the title of this webinar, I would say that democracy hasn't ended yet in Tunisia,
and I will just finish with the international dimension. I think I only have maybe two minutes left.
We can discuss this later, maybe the Q&A. So I would say that while no Western government power photographed coup or impose sanctions,
we see that Tunisia is under pressure to revert back to its democratic path.
As I say by the U.S., the EU, especially Germany, the IMF and World Bank,
and all and most of the G7 countries are kind of worried about where Tunisia is going and they are exerting pressure on the country
and society is actually the president and his supporters are very are easily offended by the criticism coming from abroad.
But again, another another nuance here. He's very careful not to preach, not to break Tunisia's ties with these foreign partners.
So we haven't seen any ambassador being thrown at no embassies closed and no projects were cancelled.
Negotiations with the IMF continue. The appointed government is rather cosmopolitan.
I mean, the ministers are rather cosmopolitan. We don't see radical nationalists or radical revolutionaries.
I mean, maybe some of them are, but the majority of them are more cosmopolitan figures who lived abroad,
worked with international organisations and so on. So this is this is one now.
These are this is these are the angry ones now, the ones who are not very unhappy.
We see that the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Egyptians keep praising president fired on their media outlets.
They send a laudatory invoice to Inusah in the days following the photographs,
and they have also sent important COVID aid and vaccines in July and August, and they actually through that.
They contributed in modelling the image of the saviour that the president enjoys today.
The Algerians, the French and the Italians seem to also give side best, they barely issue any criticism,
whether another nuance here three months after four months after the power grab.
We haven't seen any one of these countries offering Tunisia and the billions it actually the billions of dollars it needs to pass the winter.
Their support is so far moral and not physical, if I can say, which means that actually each side is not their guy.
He's his own guy, a very stubborn nationalist leader with a very idealist mindset who is hard to co-opt.
This leaves Tunisia in some no man's land. Neither is Norwest, but desperately in need of support.
It's neither a democracy nor an authoritarian regime, but it's somewhere in agrees on until when can this last?
This is an open question. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Yousef, for a remarkably clear and concise treatment of what has happened over the last four months.
And thank you particularly for adding more nuance. As you indicated, a lot of the coverage and discussion has fallen very clearly into one or two,
one or two rather polarised positions, seeing it as something very good or something very damaging, and it's very good to hear it.
Actually, it's a much more makes them much more nuanced picture.
So thank you very much. Now turn to and pose the same question to you.
Is it the end the end of democracy in Tunisia and. Thank you very much, Michael.
I'm afraid I'm a little bit more in the more damaging camp, so little bit more critical than Yusef and I will explain in a minute.
Why just going to start the presentation?
So I'm going to focus my talk on Karzai at his rallies and political project and and specific, I'm going to focus on three main points.
The first is Karzai, its background and rise to power. Second, his political vision and strategies of power consolidation.
And lastly, the challenges he faces and possible future scenarios.
But first, I would like to start with a few quotes of him, and I'm not going to discuss them in much detail,
but just wanted to put them up as I do think they can be quite well his political ambitions and ideas.
First in April, so even before what I would refer to as the coup.
Karzai had claimed I'm the commander of the security forces, not just of the army.
However, according to the Constitution,
he is just a commander of the army and the National Guard and the police under the command of the prime minister.
But Karzai not accept this division of power.
Then in June, so again, before the coup, he talked about his plan to change the Constitution and to install a presidential system.
And you stated that they are those who will adhere to the new political system as well.
Those who would persist in the fallacious methods be sure that they would end up in the dustbin of history.
In his 25 July statement, when he announced he had taken over power and suspend parliament,
the government he threatened if anyone fires a single bullet against the security forces there will respond by a rain of bullets.
And a month later, he declared that the exceptional measures would be extended until the new order.
And I said, of course, being the one deciding what the new order is and when it will be achieved, and I personally don't think there's anyone,
anyone much ambiguity about Karzai its intentions, namely that he wants to rule alone and that he doesn't accept any opposition to his rule.
Indeed, he even threatens to use force against any challengers.
And I would just like to briefly revisit Science 2009 electoral campaign, so the slight the picture you see is from 2019.
And my main point here is that he never really hit his intentions to instigate deep changes to Tunisia's political institutions.
And just a little bit of background for those of you who are not very familiar with Tunisian politics in 2019,
OK, say it basically Typekit out of nowhere.
He's a professor in constitutional law and ran a grassroots campaign back then with almost no advertisement and no party apparatus behind him.
His key message were youth empowerment, the fight against corruption, socioeconomic distribution, redistribution.
And he portrayed himself as the people, as the president of the people of the disenfranchised and to marginalised, especially young Tunisians.
And the fact that he was not part of the political establishment.
And have you spent any money at all on campaigning was seen as evidence that he's trustworthy,
clean and honest, very different from how the political elite at that at that time was seen by the people.
And the main controversies back then were really about his conservative positions on a number of issues, such as women's rights.
He spoke out against equality in inheritance, homosexuality, which he wanted to criminalise, as well as his support of the death penalty.
But interestingly, in his positions on Tunisia's political system did not draw as much attention back then at all,
and this was despite the fact that he openly said that he would like to change the Constitution,
introduce a political system and change the electoral laws.
However, these ideas were back then commonly portrayed in a way as yet the idealist, the utopian beliefs of a professor.
And I think this image there today very much prevails amongst some sectors in Tunisia.
And I did find the testimony of one of his former students in 2019,
which you can see on the bottom right corner of the slide, I found it actually very interesting.
The student described becauseit in 2019 as a man haunted by an idea who has some
reservations about representative democracy as it is practised and experienced in Tunisia.
And I did find that A. appointed a very powerful because it does convey the
extent to which political change has been sent to him for a very long time.
It's almost as if the student wants to tell us he has been obsessed by it.
And really, what has characterised Tisci ever since you took power was his complete unwillingness to compromise on his political vision.
Indeed,
an unwillingness to engage with any other political tendencies on anything at all or to even engage with them in any meaningful or constructive way.
And I think what we saw on the 25th of July, when he suspended Parliament of Parliament, the government is in a way.
The culmination of this tendency of no compromise and engagement with other political tendencies.
So now fast forward Science and 25th of July.
On the top left, you see him surrounded by top security officers as he announced that he has suspended parliament and the government on the top right.
You can see him doing a speech to the public while holds up some some posters featuring scenes of disturbance and quarrels in parliament,
and he uses that to show to what extent in peace and instigators of violence,
according to him,
and basically to justify him shutting parliament down and referring to it as useless and not representative of the people on the bottom left.
You can see ProCase side protesters and the picture on the bottom right I find particularly interesting.
You can see Karzai at behind and with the new Prime Minister Natalegawa then and I find a symbolism
of this picture actually very powerful and interesting to say it behind his beautiful desk,
looking very much presidential like and the prime minister sitting in front of him,
looking up on a simple chair almost as if she was a student looking at a professor pool waiting for instructions and guidance.
And I do think that reflects the dynamics between the two of them very well.
As Joseph mentioned, parricide remains extremely popular with the people in this power grab was initially when called by many political actors.
Indeed, according to the latest polls, which I just checked before.
About 80 percent of the people are still satisfied with him today, and that's really, really massive and important.
And this is also due to what can be referred to as populist strategy of power consolidation.
I say it portrays and says of the leader of Tunisia's revolution.
He says that the previous political leaders hijacked the revolution,
and he wants to finally do justice to people's revolutionary demands to denounces political parties as they are corrupt,
and he vouchers to introduce an element of local democracy that gives power back to the people.
Supposedly, of course, I don't think what we're seeing here right now is really going into the democratic
direction because they had really positioned themselves as the spokesman of the people.
The only one who knows what the people want and the way he thinks he is, the one who can read and realise people's demands.
So when people ask him what is political project is he commonly replies,
I want what the people want if he is being asked a follow up question, what do the people want?
He says that people know what they want. So not very useful.
He also plays on people's nationalist sentiments and commonly denounces foreign interference, as Yusuf has mentioned this well.
And of course, this nationalism or revolution of populism are common strategies of domination amongst wannabe dictators or strongmen,
especially those who take power amid wider collective economic crisis and promise to correct past wrongs.
So it's really not that exceptional in this respect. And I think I say it also implies another common strategy of power consolidation,
which is the instigation of confusion and general vagueness about what comes next.
Some people often say that, you know, he could say it might not know him, said what he wants and what's next.
But I think he has shown very clearly over the past weeks, months and even years that he knows what he wants.
He has always envisioned a strong presidency, and he should not be underestimated because of that.
And he's deliberately instigating, to some extent, a confusion about his project, because if by some time and when people are confused,
they are also not organising as forcefully against him because they still have hope that something positive will come out of this crisis.
And even now is facing increasing opposition from the political class and from some civil society groups,
many key actors are still waiting for something to happen. They are hoping that this will end in the way they they want.
But scientists been using this time to place many of his allies in strategic positions to pursue structural changes,
nominating a prime minister and a government that he largely controls, as well as imprisoning some opposition figures.
So the question is really what is this plan? What kind of regime does you want and what kind of regime is she trying to construct?
And obviously, it's too early to be sure in the next weeks and months will be pivotal in that respect,
but I do think he has some kind of a what we call hybrid or competitive authoritarian regime in mind.
So an autocratic system that retains some democratic features, but that does not pose any real challenge to the leader, so to himself.
So this could, for example, consist of introducing some kind of local democratic elections, even presidential elections,
which you would obviously be certain to win at this stage given the massive popular support he has.
The real question really is. This week, I say it succeed in his project.
And I've heard a lot of comparisons between Egypt and Tunisia over the past weeks and months,
and there are some obvious parallels in the sense that in both countries,
the coups that happened after the other Arab uprisings had the backing of the army and of the range of anti-democratic and anti Islamist forces.
But I also do things like Youssef also mentioned that the comparison in many ways is limited to main political actors in Tunisia and Egypt.
Very different. The power balance is different, and the main political stakeholders are very distinct.
However, I do think that the comparison between cageside and Ben Ali when Ben Ali took power is quite insightful,
as will it can reveal some of the main challenges that lie ahead for case.
Just some background here in 1987, but Ali also conducted what back then was similarly termed a constitutional coup that was supported by the army,
and Ben Ali back then was also a relative political newcomer. And he took power during a time of wider political and economic crisis.
So though obviously not as accurate as it was in Tunisia, the summer.
And similar to Sayid, Ben Ali employed a rhetoric of wanting to correct past political and economic runs,
and the main difference between the two of them was really that I say it obviously is very popular and Ben Ali has a military background.
It's very significant. However, how did Ben Ali consolidate power?
What did you do? He employed a very different approach, he got a very broad support coalition that included all main political actors,
the utility workers union, the ruling party, secular opposition parties, even representative of the Islamist movement.
So Ben Ali decided to reach out to all of them, and once he had accumulated enough power the space of two years,
he began to slowly crack down on his main challenges. And from a competitive research and also attend politics with politics,
we know that such broad coalitions are most conducive to power consolidation of strongman or wannabe dictators.
However, I say it is very different in that respect. I say it is vilifying indeed slandering all major political parties, national organisations,
calling them, for example, drunken and denouncing them as corrupt and liars.
Even those that initially supported him. And as a result is becoming increasingly political, isolated.
And this will be a major challenge, especially in the medium and long term.
I'm not aware of any main political party or national organisations still supporting them.
And I say it will not be able to approach this popular support base forever and part of this political isolation also,
he's acknowledges himself that he's not good with numbers and the economy.
He does not have a magic solution to solve Tunisia's economic problems.
And if anything, the current political crisis will just make him much worse.
And this, in turn, does make his political future very much dependent on the support he receives from the army.
And to conclude, I would like to outline three main scenarios for the future.
The most optimistic one and the one, I believe use of hope will happen is that domestic and international pressure will increase and
gradually force decided to come to agree to some kind of roadmap with all key political actors,
and so a solution to the crisis would be found. However, I have to say that at this point in time, he has categorically refused such a path.
The second one is that you will consolidate more and more power,
and we will see more and more restrictions on political freedoms, especially as his popularity will gradually fade.
Basically, he will join the ranks of populist dictators around the world.
And judging from the picture on the slide, which has been circulating on social media, that's what some Tunisians seem to believe is happening.
And in a third scenario, the army takes over.
This could happen, for example, if major violence erupts between Karzai supporters and the opposition or simply the economic crisis.
We're worse, and so we see many more instances of social unrest and demonstrations as is happening and slex quite something at the moment.
So officers might decide to step in in this scenario, even if just for a transitional period.
So as you can see, a little bit more bleak, my presentation and my talk compared to Yousef's and I will leave it here for now.
But I look very much forward to discussing with all of you during the Q&A.
Thank you very much indeed. And Kai, say it has been a bit of a mystery figure,
I think even since he was elected and you've gone some way to trying to demystify who he is and what he's about, so thank you very much.
We now move on to looking questions and answers, and I encourage you again to use the questionnaire as a function if you want to
pose a question to liberal speakers or a more general question to both speakers.
So I do encourage you to do that. So that's in the Q&A. You just click on the Q&A function.
You can then type in type in your question.
I would like to begin with the question I have about speakers, and it comes back to something that was a quote from an ice site said.
And he said he seems to have reservations about representative democracy as it's practised in Tunisia.
Now it seems to me that this reservation is substantially shared with a large part of the Tunisian population.
They both have reservations about representative democracy as it's practised in Tunisia.
And my question is really to focus on that last emphasis.
Is it a reservation about representative democracy in the way it's being practised and introduced in Tunisia over the last 10 years?
Or is it actually a more profound reservation they share about representative democracy as a way of running Tunisia?
In other words, it's not just the way it's been done, it's just the general principle.
And if so, what sort of ways out of this guy site has a view of what?
What could replace this more traditional form of representative democracy?
So perhaps go, go, go first to use on that, you said. So.
The issue here is that no one is actually giving an alternate.
Yes, he has reservations. Many people have reservations, but then ask them, Why do you suggest?
What you hear usually is, oh, we need the presidential system,
because that's how Tunisia was ruled for most of its post-colonial era, and many consider that it works.
But then is there something like a very clear guidebook on where we're going and how we should go there?
No. Even President side said it doesn't.
If you look for his programme during the elections, you have some speeches, but you don't have something concrete.
This is not so the plan that many people are talking about today doesn't exist.
It's being put in place now, probably by some groups around him, but it's not there yet.
While the parliament, the parliamentarian,
parliamentary or parliamentary system that we had is something that a lot of experts sat together and put in place and and.
Yeah, and so that's how how it was created, so it's not something that was imposed.
Like many people who are critical of the period before the United States.
So my my fear here, when we when many Tunisians say that they want another political system.
My fear is that one there is nothing clear concrete. So the thing that they're heading to that the country is heading to is one and
describe something of the more maybe hybrid democracy or hybrid authoritarian system,
but actually something that is less democratic than where we were and as we know from many examples in the world.
You can take any dictatorship, call it a democracy and move on.
But actually, it's a dictatorship. I mean, China or North Korea or even Russia, they call themselves democracy.
And they, I mean the concept of sovereign democracy in Russia. So would we have something similar in Tunisia, then presented as a democracy?
That's that's a risk. And I mean, I agree with many points that the unsafe but.
For other reasons that are, I mean, the balance of power in the country.
I still think that we're not going there yet, and I still think that four months after the power grab, we don't have an agenda.
And so I mean, there needs to be a solution, and I think the solution needs to be negotiated.
Thank you, Yousef. And yeah, if I could just jump in.
I think one of the key problems here is really that we have seen over the past two years, really only I remember in 2013,
I think it really started in Tunisia that I was struck by the growing scepticism against political parties,
by the people and scepticism that has been amplified on media by the media that has been focussing on the quarrels between the politicians.
So and so so the concept of political parties as mediator of the will of the people has become.
It's become an extremely question. And that has really been feeding into this to the scepticism,
an almost like hatred of political parties and politicians who are increasingly associated with with just their own interest.
And already in 2013 14, I remember people talking and I wish that the army would take over which back then,
you know, well, a lot of people in Western universities were still celebrating the Tunisian experiment.
So this really very much clashed with the perception of the Tunisian model that we were celebrating here.
This growing scepticism of the of the political system that we have in Tunisia and calls for an alternative.
Increasing talk about this about a third way, something in between the political system that we are having and a strong dictator.
And that, again, I think side is exploiting by trying to introduce some kind of hybrid or competitive authoritarian system.
Thank you very much. And move now to the questions that are coming in on the Q&A, but thank you very much for typing in your questions.
We've got a lot of very distinguished and knowledgeable people on North Africa who follow it and follow Tunisia very well.
So delighted to have them join us. And the first of those is the head of Salah, who, as many of you will know,
has been writing on North Africa in the British national press for so many years.
Welcome, Heather, and thank you very much for joining us and have us.
Question is, was the situation before July the 25th and Tunisia sustainable?
And did it have the ability to self-correct and I think have a default of rephrase that this question is saying really?
Was it unavoidable, but something had to happen that the crisis that come to power or was it or did I say this
intervention actually really interfered in something that we could have actually self-directed again?
Go faster, use it first.
This is an easy and difficult question, and actually, I look back at some articles I wrote or some comments I made before today,
but at some point I would say, Well, this is not a sustainable situation and we'll explore that at some point.
They say, Well, this is how democracy works, and it's and and this status quo, will we stay forever?
But what is sure is that there was a crisis before July 25th.
Everyone was unhappy. I mean, the president would decide something.
The prime minister would decide something against it. The parliament would vote, would vote something and the president would say no.
So there was a blue cash and white.
And now a lot of people in each side puts their responsibility on the other.
But there was a blue card. So I think the what I mean, I think something needed to happen, but something more.
Any elections rather than this.
But this is what what happened and I think what happened is actually the pessimistic scenario and not the next scenario, which was an election and.
Yeah, I agree with Yusef that obviously the the there was a major crisis which wasn't just about the health crisis,
the economic crisis, that was the political crisis between the president, the prime minister and the head of parliament.
On top of that, there was another major crisis which we haven't actually talked about yet,
which was a crisis within the largest political party in Tunisia within and after,
which has to some extent has served as a counterbalance or as the balancing force ever since the Tunisian uprisings and after has always been.
There are all other parties, have a lot of parties been created.
A lot of them have collapsed, but and not underwent in a way was a stabilising factor.
And this wasn't so much the case anymore.
This summer, for a variety of reasons, the reasons one of them is that the head of another country took the leadership of the parliament,
but he's a very controversial figure. One of the most or the most distrusted person in Tunisia.
So he amplified political crisis.
At the same time, the crisis was also internally with an investor because she was trying to accumulate more power within the party,
didn't want to see the leadership of the party even go the party charter told him to do so.
So as a result, and afterwards gradually imploding from inside,
where a lot of statements criticism between rival factions to an extent and not as never seen before in India's entire history,
it was too or it is still the biggest crisis and US has ever seen the one force that
has in a way stabilised the political transformation in Tunisia in the past decade,
even though it has been very much criticised, sometimes rightfully, sometimes not rightfully.
And I think the crisis of Tunisia today is to some extent also reflective of the crisis within another.
Thank you very much. And thank you for saying something about NADA again, you haven't been referred to much in your original presentations,
and they're obviously a crucial part of this jigsaw,
and I believe that that helps explain things very nicely for unexpected forgetting somebody else who follows and knows Tunisia very well.
Danny, decent wine. Welcome, Danny. Very nice to have you join us. And Danny's question is about the army.
How influential powerful is the Tunisian army today? Unlike Egypt, the army in Tunisia was always marginal to political life.
And indeed,
as that was one of the explanations for why the revolution succeeded in Tunisia opposite and could be army really be able and interested to intervene?
And you referred to the army, perhaps go to you first to mention about whether we will see the army introduce it,
which is really not played a political role throughout post-independence history and quite an unremarkable in a quite a remarkable way.
Whether that might change.
Yeah, I think that's a really important question and one of the key questions right now, and I'm not sure I have one very obvious answer to this.
That would be very easy, but I don't. But just to put maybe the rule of the army or demystify a little bit,
I think it has the the degree of neutrality and apolitical position of the Tunisian army.
I do think it has been overstated. It has also been overstated that the army is very weak in other countries with an army
compared to it off as like a fourth army force comparable to the size of Tunisia.
Military coups have happened, so it's not that Tunisia's army is weak marginal force.
That's the first point I want to make. And the other point is that I want to make a snap is the how the army has been misportrayed.
Also during the Tunisian revolution, when the narrative circulated that the army defected from Ben Ali and in a way it sided with the Tunisian people,
which is, it's been quoted dozens and dozens of times, but it's unfortunately not what happened.
What actually happened back then is that the army did not do anything because Ben Ali,
at least not until Ben Ali left because Ben Ali had never asked the army.
There were contacts and the officers asking what to do so in a way that army was following Ben Ali,
but until the end, but basically following what he had asked him to do, which is not much at that time.
So where does that leave us? Basically, the army is a very disciplined organisation who like hierarchy.
Many of the officers were appointed by Ben Ali, ruled through Ben Ali.
A lot of them are highly sceptical of Islamists, which everyone knows was already talked to.
Some of them. I think already in 2013, with the events in Egypt, some of them it is privately like the idea,
if I may say that, that something similar would happen in Tunisia.
Um, so we don't know what's going to happen in the future.
I'm not saying the army, there's going to be certainly a military dictatorship. I think that would be way too far fetched.
But I do think they had a choice when a it invoked Article 18, which if you read the article, you can you can you just meet.
You don't need to be an expert on constitutional law like he is, just need to be a simple person like we are.
Read the article and you can see it's not constitutional because the parliament says very clearly that parliament should should be in session.
What the did? They actually blocked people from entering the parliament and and so basically they decided to follow the orders of Pisi it,
even though he was not working anymore in legal frame.
And I do think by that, the political neutrality collapsed.
They agreed to follow orders of someone who did not operate any more within the constitutional frame.
So I don't think we can describe the army at this point as neutral or as they have clearly taken sides.
The question is just what they will do in the future. And this I cannot answer.
Thank you, you your view. No, I agree with on that.
The army is not that neutral in Tunisia like any country by the end of the day.
I mean. It's part of the political spectrum, but one thing is that even when they went to Parliament,
that's one thing with the Tunisian army that they rarely confront citizens.
So even on July 25th, they were sitting there. They would tell people not to enter, but they would not.
Shooting people and for the future when the army is an option, but also in a place like Tunisia,
where the police and the Minister of Interior and actually very influential and for decades,
they were the ones actually pulling the strings more than the army itself.
There are another important player that that can.
Want to take take up more war powers.
But I think one the army today is more powerful than where it was 10 years ago, and so it's its place is actually perhaps as important.
It's a bit more important than it is to consider. So there is a balance of power there.
And also, I think the army or the police, they don't see themselves as being able to control the whole country for a long period of time.
And so so far, I don't see them really moving in and taking power.
But as I said, I mean, this is this is an open question.
Thank you. You said enough.
This question is again dealing with significant actors outside of a formal political realm, and deals with this comes from an anonymous anonymously.
She's absolutely fine, and it deals with the Yugi team, which is the main trade union federation.
As many of you know, Tunisia well. Tunisia has an extremely powerful trade union movement.
Probably the most powerful in the Arab world, but did play a significant role in the revolution.
And the question is, what do you think the role of the team will be in the next weeks or months?
Both the already made some references. Did they have the ability to slow or even stop Kai side's ascension?
So on the road of the unity, and perhaps you'd like to go first on that?
Yes, sure. So maybe you should start by the position of the utility on what has happened at the beginning,
like many other organisations and political parties, is what actually is.
I mean, they maybe I should start by clarifying this not one utility.
It's a massive organisation, obviously, with many different factions.
And so, so the position right now. What I'm just referring to is the position, the official position, as as discussed by the president.
So, um, so at the beginning, the unity was very favourable.
But and the was even trying to reach out to my side because what do you think wanted some kind of a real influence
on on taking a major role within this political crisis and draughting some kind of roadmap on how to get out of it?
So they initially declared they supported him,
then they even themselves draughted a roadmap of how they envisioned to get out of the crisis in a very detailed way,
similar to what they envisioned a similar process that they had together with the quartette.
But even though they did not engaged with the so it's he's very in that sense, I think,
not very strategic in the sense that he even though forces political parties or
national organisations that strongly spoke out in favour of him at the beginning.
He is not reacting to them and trying to integrate them any way in this political limbo that he actually created.
So. So what we're seeing now is utility becoming more and more critical of him.
Many people speaking out calling this a coup and being afraid also that we will turn to the times like they were under Ben Ali.
I mean, no one actually really knows case yet, and that makes him extremely unpredictable.
And I think all the major national organisations and political parties are realising that they placed his hope in this idealistic,
utopian professor and still hoping that he's an idealist as opposed to a dictator.
But I think they're increasingly realising that actually having to having to deal with an idealist dictator, which is not a contradiction in terms.
Thank you, Yousef. Yeah, actually on is it the day,
I think the main reason why they supported ISIS on July 5th is because their grassroots are supportive of seeing their grassroots.
Many of them are very much opposed to another. Most of them work in the public sector.
So have I mean, they have in their system and still believe that what the nation needs is a strong man and not the parliament and so on and so on.
So the grassroots and also because of this very anti-imperialist narrative and discourse.
So he seduced them now. They had to follow that way.
I mean, the leadership. But slowly, they started criticising him as weeks went by because actually the leadership they feel feels that isYou
doesn't necessarily want to deal with them and say that he had united that almost everyone and he doesn't.
He considers himself the embodiment of everything right and clean, et cetera.
And so he probably considers some either as corrupt.
So is it that they actually the leadership of that they found itself sidelined
by him and possibly accused by him of all people around him of corruption?
So they are afraid of what will happen if he continues that they are afraid also that if he continues monopolising power,
they won't be able to negotiate with the government as they used to do before,
to get higher wages and better salaries and better conditions for their members who work in the public sector.
So they are worried about what would happen to them.
But now that they see that his popularity may be decreasing, not that much, but some people start questioning what he's doing.
You see them on a more critical. You see more and more strikes organised by you.
It is very limited, very small, but it's growing in number.
And I think we spoke about the army or the police. But I think it is the other big player much more important than any political party and much more.
And it has actually a much more solid basis than any political party can do.
It's not political party.
So in the future, I think we will see a kind of we to use it more and more vocal against aside and let the less popular the East.
The more is it that they will speak up and once the economic crisis that most people expect gets deeper.
I think that they will have a much important role to play in the country and to oblige him to negotiate
or or we will see some kind of like there between you and the president and whoever is around.
Thank you, use, if we have time for one more question, apologies to all of the wonderful questions.
Great question. It'd be nice to extend this session. We have time for one more question.
One last question comes from one of the master's students here Middle East Centre Riley Sanborn.
And Riley's question is prior to the events of July, the expressly anti-democratic and authoritarian,
nostalgic party historian Liberal, the three that the story and party led the opinion polls in a hypothetical next election.
What does this say about the attitudes of the Tunisian public media into the current crisis?
Does popular support for such a party, but was nostalgic about the past reflects growing anti revolutionary sentiments of all?
Or is this more a product of popular anti-elite attitudes?
And first, OK, a very long question.
But so basically, if I understood correctly, it's about what the rise of Abdel Mmusi has to say about the current situation.
So that's probably not doing justice to the question. But yeah, I think um.
And whether or not it was anti revolutionary elites, sorry, I might have missed the past,
but I think I mean, the rise of Abu Mazen is a bit has in a way foreshadowed.
I mean, it's easy to say in retrospect,
but this has been foreshadowing shadowing this anti revolutionary movement that we're now witnessing, I think for a very long time.
I mean, Morsi has been embodying in a way will try to unite different factions, anti revolutionary factions.
So not all of them would describe themselves as anti revolutionaries. That's also important to note.
So she is looking or she's trying to unite has long unite.
For example, members of the former ruling party of Benali, the RCD, but also other forces, especially anti Islamist forces.
And so. So yeah, I mean, these are also the people who who many of them are now backing, say it.
So I think there's a little bit of a continuity in this respect.
And the question is now just what what is actually going to happen with Abdul Morsi and her party?
And I think it's quite interesting how she reacted. And Youssef can maybe tell us more about how how this is being played out on the ground.
But the way I've been seeing it is that actually at the beginning,
she took a long time to react because in a way I say it reflects many of the uh or or
reflects many of the project that she has been striving to achieve herself in Tunisia.
So ideologically, they're very much close, but politically they are competitors.
So put on a very difficult situation because she could not now suddenly say she's not supporting.
I say it because she has been saying for a long time she would like that the Islamists
disappear and has been using a lot of extremely violent anti-Islamic rhetoric.
So what we saw after he took power that actually she waited for a long time.
A lot of other political parties already published statements. She waited.
Sometimes you need till you needed some time to think about how to approach this very difficult political dilemma.
And then she spoke out in support of him, also expressing the hope that finally,
the Muslim Brotherhood, as she derogatorily called, is an actor in that she means that derogatorily.
I'm not saying that I find it derogatory, but an actor does not identify the leadership as the Muslim Brotherhood.
So she, she she in a way tried to celebrate it in the way against the Islamist establishment in Tunisia.
But now now fast forward a few months later, she, like many other people, are also speaking out.
Of course it because in the in the in the political future that society is trying to draw here.
There's also no room for a business he and her fellowship, there's just room for cageside and the people and everyone else in between is disappearing.
And that poses a problem for all political parties, all tenancies, no matter how close the case.
And that leaves them increasingly isolated, isolated and winners also outlined in my talk.
Thank you, Youssef. So I think the main reason why a lot of people support the support of supported Morsi and the activists really
before July 25th and why many people support their side is not because of their anti-Semitism or because.
Empty democracy perspectives, but because they came against another war, many Tunisians.
At least if we take those who are supportive of the party dystonia and evil, plus those who are supportive of our side,
we can call them a majority of Tunisians, and neither represents the last 10 years represent the ruling power of the last years.
So in a way, I mean, I mentioned earlier and the fact that, you know,
that was criticised for right and wrong many times there are a lot of fake news against another,
but actually for the majority of Tunisians,
another is representative of those 10 years representative of the state collapse of the economic problems, corruption, etc etc.
And so whoever comes and goes another day would come with him or with her.
And this is actually what happened 10 years ago. I mean, and the reason why many people went out against Ben Ali and because people who are opposed to
Ben and it is because they simply represented something else and different from from Ben.
So it would be wrong to to describe this as pro-democracy anti-democracy revolution.
Russian, I mean, frankly, another, especially in recent years,
they had alliances with people who would represent the elite of the Ben Ali regime and the people who are known to be corrupt.
Then this scenario is not anymore. That Revolutionary Party or that and not also that Islamist classical Islamist party.
But it became an opportunist party like all political parties, actually.
And so, as I say to me, for many people, it doesn't represent.
It does embody the last 10 years, the failures of the last 10 years,
and then people went for side and the party is still really the reason may be why before
July 25th is that people did not really see something like what happened in July 22.
So the only option they saw out of another was to go in for elections and vote for something else.
And there's something else was the party.
This really now that sided this power grab and that democracy is on standby and that people don't know when the next elections take place.
Many people who are supportive of party obviously are now supportive of it.
But again, this is happening now. It's been for months, but in six months from now, I think we'll see a completely different picture.
And now that I will is the one who is in charge of everything people will blame.
Lay blame him for everything because I don't think the socioeconomic situation will improve in the upcoming months.
We will see people criticising him and opposing him in a few months from now, a few years from now,
but not so long the way they are now opposing another and the way they finally finish.
Thank you, use it. Thank you. I'm afraid the clock is against us, which means we must draw the session to a close,
and I apologise again for all the people who post questions we weren't able to post and we would like to have gone through all of them.
But thank you very much for joining us. Now I want to thank all two speakers this evening.
And an I had found very in a very confusing situation of what had happened since July.
And I feel even though I don't quite understand everything yet,
I feel a lot better equipped to try and understand what is happening in Tunisia and to see how things unfold from here.
So thank you very much to both of you. And thank you to all of you attending.
And I look forward to you joining us on another occasion. Thank you very much and have a very nice evening.
Thank you. Bye bye.