The current context will only be worsened by the uncertainty surrounding the next presidential election. Saied’s presidential term is set to expire in late October. But although the election should take place sometime before that in the fall, no date has been announced yet.
Supporters of Tunisian President Kais Saied attend a rally on the country’s Independence Day, in Tunis, Tunisia, March 20, 2023 (Sipa photo by Nicolas Fauque via AP Images).
In late May, Tunisian President Kais Saied once again made headlines by being his predictably unpredictable self: He fired two of his ministers out of the blue.
This time, the hammer fell on Interior Minister Kamel Feki and Minister of Social Affairs Malek Zahi, two of Saied’s close allies. As on previous occasions, no justifications for the dismissals were given by the president’s office.
The most recent dismissals came at a time of heightened political tensions in Tunisia. Saied’s authoritarian regime has continued to arrest critics and opposition figures, and he even faced street protests in the capital, Tunis, in May.
Yet, unexpected firings of government officials have become so common under Saied that it is difficult to understand what they actually mean when they happen.
Since the summer 2021, when he began centralizing powers in the presidency through a constitutional coup, Saied has fired nearly 80 government officials, including two prime ministers, 20 Cabinet ministers, 14 regional governors, several managers of public companies and a host of other public servants.
Despite the information blackout that accompanies most of these governmental changes, they seem to point to a general sense of aimlessness and lack of direction at the top of the Tunisian regime.
For all his bravado and promises to “root out corruption” and “save Tunisia,” Saied has little to show for his rule. The 66-year-old jurist and law professor was elected president in October 2019 after running as an outsider and portraying himself as the one person who could tame Tunisia’s messy parliamentary democracy.
And yet the only way he has markedly changed the country has been by moving it inexorably closer to authoritarianism. In July 2021, taking advantage of popular protests driven by an ongoing economic crisis and the worsening COVID-19 pandemic, Saied shut down the parliament. Since then, he has strengthened his powers, jailed critics and opposition leaders, and seemingly refused to consult anyone else’s opinions in managing state affairs.
Journalists and activists that criticize the government are now routinely rounded up and put in jail. Most have been charged under Decree 54, a law issued by Saeid in 2022 that criminalizes the spreading of “false news” with sentences of up to five years in jail.
As ironic as it now seems, in his previous life as a legal scholar, Saied participated in the drafting of Tunisia’s 2014 constitution, three years after protests brought down former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Albeit flawed, the document crystalized much of the political opening that followed the 2011 revolution.
Against a backdrop of increased repression and ongoing economic crisis, the high turnover in Tunisia’s government seems like the perfect way for Saied to find scapegoats for his own lack of solutions for the country’s problems.
But as president, Saied has been busy dismantling Tunisia’s democracy, even as he routinely covers up his own mismanagement with high-profile prosecutions of his critics. After ruling by presidential decree for the year after he dissolved parliament, he put a new constitution to a sham referendum in July 2022, in which the document was approved with 94 percent of the votes. Portraying this as a victory, Saied and his supporters were happy to ignore the fact that over 70 percent of Tunisian voters boycotted the poll. Turnout for the first legislative elections under the new constitution in December 2022 was even worse: Just 11 percent of voters bothered to cast a ballot.
In between the two polls, in September 2022, Saied signed Decree 54 into law. Since then, his regime has used it to go after more than 60 journalists, lawyers and activists.
Against this backdrop of increased repression and an ongoing economic crisis, the high turnover in Tunisia’s government and administrative state seems like the perfect way for Saied to find scapegoats for his own lack of solutions for the country’s problems. But it also speaks to his growing isolation, even as his real strategy for Tunisia remains to be seen.
Every time he meets government officials or members of the country’s administration, local media publish photos accompanied by a fawning and vapid story about what was discussed. And yet in every one of these images, Saied seems to be giving a lecture to a class, rather than discussing policy with government officials.
“Kais Saied is not only very badly advised, but he does not trust anyone,” says a Tunisian journalist and political analyst who asked to remain anonymous due to the ongoing repression. “He basically lives in an ivory tower and believes that there are no competent people to implement his policies.”
Since coming to power, and especially after he dissolved parliament to centralize control in the presidency, Saied increasingly speaks of himself as the man with all the solutions. But he has been unable to stabilize the country’s economy or its politics.
Many Tunisians still credit Saied’s regime for going after influential businessmen accused of corruption. But in a climate where any dissenting voices are easily targeted by authorities through a pliable judicial system, it is often hard to distinguish legitimate efforts to fight corruption from political persecution.
Many of the president’s governing decisions now seem to be taken late at night and without any real explanation. Increasingly unwilling to address Tunisians publicly, Saied will nonetheless rush to the site of a problem or crisis if the issue gains traction in social media. There, he will generally berate public officials or complain about the slowness of the administration he’s been heading for years now.
The current context will only be worsened by the uncertainty surrounding the next presidential election. Saied’s presidential term is set to expire in late October. But although the election should take place sometime before that in the fall, no date has been announced yet.
Saied could conceivably argue that his presidential term only really began in July 2022, with the approval of the new constitution. He might therefore end up scrapping elections altogether, sending Tunisia deeper into a constitutional abyss. In any case, whether he decides to bypass the ballot or stage-manage an election to give himself another term without allowing for a free and fair vote, Tunisians can expect uncertainty to increase. And as the political and economic situation worsens, more ministers and government officials are likely to have brief and erratic stints in office.
On a long enough timeline, all authoritarian regimes come to an end. But in Tunisia, it is likely that Saied will run out of people to hire well before his time in power finishes. This will likely make his decision-making more erratic and unpredictable.
Until then, any official accepting to serve in his Cabinet can be sure of two things: job instability and a place in history as one of the enablers of Tunisia’s descent back into authoritarianism.
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Francisco Serrano is a journalist, writer and analyst. His work has appeared in Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Weapons of Reason, The Outpost, Foreign Affairs and other outlets. His latest book, “As Ruínas da Década,” about the Middle East in the decade after the 2011 popular revolts, was published in 2022.
