authoritarianism in MENA

The only country to emerge as a democratic success story from the so-called Arab Spring protests of 2011, Tunisia now appears to have returned to one-man rule.

Saied set up a system under which he would essentially govern Tunisia by decree, bypassing the 2014 Constitution that the country had proudly adopted after years of painstaking consultations and negotiations. Effectively, Tunisia is back to the authoritarian status it had under Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the despot who ruled from 1987 until his fall in 2011.

“We are all Kais Saied, we are all Tunisia,” they shouted on the main thoroughfare in Tunis, declaring that “the people want the dissolution of parliament”. This despite warnings of a return to authoritarian rule by members of parliament, the powerful Tunisia General Labour Union (UGTT), political activists and a group of 15 local and international Tunis-based NGOs.

Tunisian police on Sunday arrested a member of parliament and a television presenter who have been prominent critics of President Kais Saied since his seizure of power in July

the military judiciary had ordered the arrests, accusing the pair of "conspiring against state security and insulting the army"

Most of Tunisia's political elite have urged him to say how and when he will get out of the crisis and two protests have taken place against his actions over the past two weekends.

Née en 1958 à Kairouan, la nouvelle résidante de la Kasbah est professeure de l’enseignement supérieur à l’École nationale d’ingénieurs de Tunis, spécialisée en géosciences.

Elle occupe actuellement le poste de chargée de mise en œuvre des programmes de la Banque mondiale au ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur et des Sciences Recherche.

Najla Bouden Romdhan est la première femme à occuper le poste de cheffe du gouvernement dans l’histoire de la Tunisie.

Al Bawsala, an independent parliamentary watchdog, has backed what it said was the president’s legal right to assume his extraordinary powers under the constitution, but not to suspend parliament. Other leading civil society groups have given the president their cautious support, saying his actions remained within the law but that he urgently needed to present a route out of the crisis.

A media union, the Syndicat National des Journalistes Tunisiens, (SNJT) reported a marked increase in assaults upon reporters, and protested about a raid on Al Jazeera’s office in Tunis.

questions are circling over the president’s promise to limit his suspension of parliament to 30 days. On Tuesday, Tunisia’s powerful UGTT trade union urged Saied to form a new government quickly.But, for now, suggestions abroad of a return to dictatorship or a loss of appetite for democracy are not being taken seriously in Tunisia.

Aster left Ethiopia in search of work. But after a Lebanese family hired her as a live-in housekeeper in 2014, she found herself cut off from the outside world and labouring without pay. Aster’s family, unable to contact her, feared she was dead.

Driven by Ethiopia’s rising living costs and unemployment, hundreds of thousands have gone to Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Kuwait. But what many find, activists and domestic workers say, is a cycle of exploitation and modern-day slavery that is hard to escape.

Rights groups have long documented cases like Aster’s, finding “consistent patterns of abuse” under Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries’ “kafala” or sponsorship system. The system links a migrant domestic worker’s legal status to the contractual relationship with her employer.

This piece aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on the constitutionality of the measures taken by the President of the Republic Kais Saied, by examining both the text of the Constitution and the context. This piece argues for a contextual interpretation approach in order to adjust to the dynamic nature of societies.

Article 80 is conditioned on the existence of an “imminent danger threatening the nation’s institutions or the security or independence of the country and hampering the normal functioning of the state.” It is worth noting that, during the Constitutive Assembly’s (NCA) voting on the above-mentioned article, concerns over the broad wording of the article were voiced, due to the absence of definition of what constitutes an ‘imminent danger’ and ‘exceptional circumstances’, those concerns were dismissed by the Rapporteur-General to the NCA, who maintained that the formulation of the article was “clear”.

the intent and real desire did not seem to be there from the beginning to endow the country with a constitutional court formed of competences and working to guarantee the supremacy of the Constitution. Its formation was hindered by the failure of the Assembly to elect its 4 appointees,11The President of the Republic, the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, and the Supreme Judicial Council shall each appoint four members. motivated by disagreements between parliamentary blocs. In April 2021, to unblock the situation, an amendment was proposed to the Article 10 of the Constitutional Court’s Law to cancel the order of the parties that have the authority to appoint members of the Court12The Article lists “successively the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, the Supreme Council of the Judiciary, and the President of the Republic.” . The bill was rejected by the President Kais Saed and sent back to the parliament for a second reading.13Parliament has preserved the same amendments that were proposed, allowing the Supreme Judicial Council and the Presidency of the Republic to choose 8 members of the Constitutional Court without waiting for Parliament to complete the election of 3 out of 4 members of its appointees.  His decision was motivated by the fact that the passing of the law exceeded the constitutional deadlines provided for in Paragraph 05 of Article 148 of the 2014 constitution

Tunisia’s leader claimed Sunday that some desperate youths are being paid to try to leave Tunisia illegally for Europe, saying the goal is to damage the country from within and hurt its ties with Europe.President Kais Saied made the remarks during a stroll down the iconic Avenue Bourguiba, the main axis in the Tunisian capital of Tunis, a week after firing the prime minister and other top officials and freezing parliament. He listened to passersby calling out his name and shouting “Tunisia!” but said nothing about his much-awaited next steps.

He claimed that some of his countrymen with political motives are paying desperate youth to make the trip, saying their intention is to repeat the mass illegal migration that began after the Tunisian revolution a decade ago.

Saied made the same assertion earlier Sunday when he formally accepted 1.5 million doses of anti-COVID-19 vaccines from Italy, warning against any “political exploitation” of the country’s youths.

the major issues that have dominated the first year of Emir Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al Sabah’s leadership and the prospects for Kuwaiti politics, which is once again in a state of ferment with no clear resolution in sight

Sheikh Sabah’s time as ruler was marked by an initial period of political deadlock that saw six parliamentary elections and more than a dozen cabinets come and go between 2006 and 2013, and then a calmer spell that culminated in the election of the National Assembly in November 2016, which became the first in nearly 20 years to serve its full four-year term.

relations between the government and the National Assembly have deteriorated in recent months to the point that, now, there is barely a working relationship at all

Saied’s so-called emergency measures remain in place, and the U.S. State Department said Wednesday that no further action has been taken. “We are monitoring and engaged,” a State Department spokesperson told Foreign Policy. Some activists and regional experts say more concrete forms of pressure from the United States are needed. They say preserving democracy in Tunisia will be a test of U.S. President Joe Biden’s central commitment to what he has called a “defining question of our time”—that is, “Can democracies come together to deliver real results for our people in a rapidly changing world?” 

Critics like Dunne say the administration has fallen seriously short of what Blinken, in a major March 3 speech, said would be a new U.S. policy to “incentivize democratic behavior” and “encourage others to make key reforms … [and] fight corruption.”

“If this administration wants to be serious about protecting democracy as a broad policy approach, there are really few places more significant.” It wouldn’t cost a lot, Feldman points out. But making clear that Saied’s moves are unacceptable would “show we actually believe in democracy and we’re not being merely situational about it.”

MEE understands that the individuals present were Egyptian security officials who have been advising Saied before the coup and directing operations as it was taking place. It is unclear what role they played in Mechichi's interrogation.  "[Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-] Sisi offered to give Saied all the support he needed for the coup and Saied took it," one of the sources said. "Egyptian military and security people were sent to Tunisia with the full support of MbZ [Mohammed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi], the source added.

The moves undertaken on Sunday closely follow a plan of action outlined by Saied's close advisors in May and published by MEE at the time. The plan outlined a purge or wave of mass arrests that would take place after the announcement of what is referred to as a "constitutional coup".

presidential sources told MEE that Saied instructed his officials to draw up a list of targets of people who could be arrested.  To pave the way for this, Saied assumed control of both the civil and military judiciary and declared himself attorney general.