Tunisia .. Do you hold the promises of presidential candidates against the pressure of reality?

Khamis Ben Brik-Tunisia

Twenty-six Tunisian presidential candidates stepped up their propaganda campaigns in cities on the last day of the campaign, launching major economic promises such as ending unemployment, poverty, attracting investment, writing off debts and nationalizing wealth, but economists argue that these promises are “not realistic”.

The campaign for the first round of presidential elections, due to be held early next Sunday, will end on Friday following the death of late President Beji Kaid Essebsi.

The campaign lasted 11 days, during which candidates ran through several marginalized cities and regions, promising voters to improve the situation.

In a campaign in the northwestern city of Siliana, LDP candidate Lotfi Merayhi promised Tunisians to return the looted funds from Tunisian banks and change economic development to boost growth, attract investment to marginalized areas, create jobs and nationalize wealth.

Election promises
The program of the candidate of "Tunisia Forward" movement, Obeid Briki, did not contain attractive economic promises such as the advancement of marginalized areas, which deteriorated further after the revolution, opening job opportunities for the unemployed, and reducing his salaries and those of members of the government.

Mohammed al-Hashimi, a candidate for the "Love Movement", pledged during his visit to the central city of Kasserine as part of his campaign to cancel the debts of 180,000 farmers in the country, employ 500,000 young people, increase growth, and create a common commercial and economic space between Tunisia and Algeria.

Although he warned voters that the implementation of development promises falls within the prerogatives of the prime minister and not the prerogatives of the president, the Democratic Party candidate Mohammed Abbou said in his campaign in the southern city of Gafsa that he will work to improve the image of Tunisia to attract investment and promote development and fight corruption.

Tunisian project candidate Mohsen Marzouk also said during his visit to the central city of Mahdia that he would create a Euro-Mediterranean market to open up employment prospects for the unemployed and attract investment to revive the Tunisian economy, in addition to linking Tunisian commercial ports with Libyan ports.

Raising the pace of growth, diversifying areas of investment, lifting marginalized areas out of poverty, reducing unemployment now stands at more than 15%, expanding social coverage and ending fragile forms of employment, were the main themes of the election campaign of Prime Minister and Tunisian candidate Yahia Youssef Chahed.

During his campaign in Ahvaz, the candidate for the Dignity Coalition, Seif Eddine Makhlouf, vowed to remove popular neighborhoods and compensate them with luxurious neighborhoods, improve the lifestyle of Tunisians, liquidate the legacy of French colonialism, review contracts and economic agreements to prevent the looting of natural and energy resources.

The economic program of lawyer Abeer Moussa, a candidate of the Free Constitutional Party, an extension of the former ruling party, was based on the creation of a Higher Council for Economic Diplomacy to attract major investments, develop the poor, raise exports and produce phosphates in the southern province of Gafsa.

reality and fantasy

But economist Moez Joudi considered these election promises as mere promises unrelated to the deteriorating economic situation in the country due to the decline in growth to 1.2% in the first row of this year compared to 3.1% the current government pledged to achieve this year.

He stressed to the island Net that the launch of those economic promises is a major fallacy because of the impossibility of application in an economic and financial situation suffocating the country, because of the high budget deficit and high trade deficit and the deterioration of the value of the dinar and high debt ratio.

He pointed out that the slight improvement in the dinar is merely a circumstantial sense as a result of excessive resort to external borrowing and allow the central bank to intervene in the exchange market to pump foreign currency and the previous increase in the interest rate, which he said has hurt consumption and investment.

He also said that many candidates do not understand anything in the diagnosis of the economic situation and sell illusions to voters to change conditions for the better, while most indicators remain in the red color, stressing that the current situation requires a policy of economic rescue and painful decisions before recovery.

"How is it possible that candidates promise voters to create big investments, achieve fictitious development projects and employ thousands of unemployed, while the country suffers from deteriorating infrastructure, corruption and negative international classifications such as money laundering and terrorism financing?"

Inaccurate diagnosis

For his part, commented economist Ezzedine Saidan on the promises made by presidential candidates that they do not rise to the level of coherent programs starting from a careful diagnosis of the economic and financial situation to provide solutions "but are loosely promises to win over voters."

He assured Al Jazeera Net that it is not possible to talk about the recovery of the Tunisian economy only after stopping the bleeding suffered by the high inflation rate (about 7%) and the decline of growth (1.2%) and the rise of public debt (77%), especially the rise in external debt, which has increased since 2016. By 70%.

He warned that Tunisia could reach the stage of requesting the rescheduling of its foreign debt if the economic bleeding is not stopped and "painful decisions" are taken, pointing out that the country has entered into an excessive cycle of 100% foreign debt.

He also said that there are "excessive populism" and lack of knowledge of the reality of the economic situation of many candidates who seek to entice voters at the expense of analyzing the reality correctly to take appropriate decisions and embark on major financial and fiscal reforms and public institutions, in his opinion.