Tunisian singer Latifa released her song "Long live the people.. Down with all the enemy of the people", in celebration of the measures taken by Tunisian President "Kais Saied" to dissolve parliament, overthrow the government and add the three judicial, executive and legislative authorities to his powers as the head of the Tunisian state. A loose block that is very general (“We are its women, we are its men.. We are its youth and its mountains. We are agriculture and its workers. We are the people”), a people fighting a battle against what the lyrics of the song called a group of brokers and land sellers. It may be natural that a song or a work of art is not concerned with accurate political descriptions of what the people and its components are despite the clear political dimension of the song, but what about the Tunisian political discourse itself, especially the speech of President Kais Saied?
Qais Said is considered the president of a republic of a special nature. A retired university professor who devoted his life to studying constitutional jurisprudence arrived at the Carthage Palace without a party, no history of struggle, no money, and no regional or international support. Most of the expectations before his election went that he would be the weakest president in the country’s history , especially in light of the sharp political polarization between Islamists and secularists.
However, he quickly showed his teeth and showed his quest to monopolize all powers in his hand, to enter into a public confrontation with the Ennahda movement, which has the largest bloc in the "frozen" parliament, and its allies, threatening the complete collapse of the democratic transition in Tunisia after ten years of a faltering and difficult democratic process.
Tunisian President Kais Saied
The failure of the Tunisian political class
Perhaps the measures that Qais Said brought was a surprise to those who followed the Tunisian issue, but the explosion of the situation in Tunisia was only a matter of time. With the outbreak of the Jasmine Revolution in December 2010, the socio-economic dimension was strongly present in it, but since the spring of 2011, the revolution has turned into an ideological and identifiable path led and monopolized - according to observers - by old and new elites far from the concerns of most components of the people.
The tragedy deepened as international financial institutions and economic partners entered the crisis line. According to the Tunisian writer, "Mohamed Abdel Mawla," these new partners "exploited the state's vibration to impose 'reform' conditions and policies that increased the country's dependence on external debt and the cost of debt servicing. Tunisians know him as the boats of heartache. Since its revolution, ten governments have ruled the country, most of which were formed from fragile and weak alliances led by the Ennahda movement, and these governments blocked all horizons for the majority of Tunisians and rejected political action,” all of which are factors that led to what happened last July 25 . (1)
The epidemic has increased the fragility of the political and social situation in Tunisia, especially in view of the disastrous government response to the crisis, so the number of injuries and with it the number of deaths increased, and this happened in light of the parliament that was elected in 2019 and did not come with a clear majority at the time, with the Ennahda movement obtaining almost a quarter of the number of seats And its entry into an alliance with a party led by a businessman around whom suspicions of financial corruption are raised. Since its election, this parliament has turned into something like a daily circus, which provoked the ridicule of Tunisians, and then quickly provoked their anger and disgust as well, as it witnessed verbal arguments and fistfights between the elected representatives several times.
Since the first elections after the revolution, the Tunisian parliament has witnessed a situation known in the Tunisian street as party tourism, where the phenomenon of an MP who enters parliament independently or on the lists of a party has spread, and then moves to another party and other political agenda in search of new alliances or seeking to secure his parliamentary seat and privileges The financial and social that comes with membership of Parliament. Tunisians watched this disappointing performance of Parliament on television at the same time they watched the escalating numbers of deaths and people infected with the Corona virus, which created a state of discontent and isolation among large sectors of the Tunisian people on the one hand, and the parliament representing it and its government on the other. (2)
All this came in light of a dire economic situation, as warnings are being raised from several local and international financial institutions of the specter of bankruptcy, at a time when the Renaissance Movement and its allies chose to follow in the footsteps of the International Monetary Fund’s agenda and open the door to external borrowing, while accepting the conditions of international financial institutions that It decided to lift subsidies on basic commodities and fuel, which exacerbated the economic crisis further. Here, the Tunisian president picked up the tip of the line, and began issuing warnings to the government and parliament to pressure it to change its policies and listen to the voice of the Tunisian people, he said.
In the middle of this year, daily infections with the Corona virus reached thousands, and the number of deaths reached hundreds, according to official figures. An accountability in Parliament on the pretext of many preoccupations, and it turned out later that many of its ministers were relaxing in a tourist resort at a time when doctors and hospital managers sat crying for help because of full recovery beds and lack of oxygen. At that moment, "unknown source" calls appeared urging Tunisians to take to the streets on July 25 and bring down both parliament and the government, and many - led by the Ennahda movement - did not take these calls seriously. (1)
Arab populism is a path to totalitarianism
The concept of populism is one of the most contested concepts, but despite the differences and differences, most thinkers agree on its main features, most notably the radical hostility to the elite, intermediary institutions such as civil society organizations and parliament, and unelected sovereign bodies such as the judiciary and constitutional courts.
In contrast, populists are strongly aligned with concepts such as the general will, homogeneous people, mass democracy, and popular sovereignty.
These rhetorical foundations are the foundation of Qais Said's presidential campaign, which brought him to the highest political position in Tunisia, under the slogan "The people want and know what they want."
Kais Saied was presented to the Tunisians as one of the people, a rhetorical and political strategy that met with unexpected success and response, thanks to which Kais Saied became the representative of ordinary Tunisians gathered around him against immoral, corrupt or failed elites, to say the least.
This case leads us to compare Kais Saied with the populism of former US President Donald Trump, whose speech was marked by a fierce and continuous attack on the American political and cultural elite, as parasitic elites that do not represent the general population in the United States.
Like Qais Saeed, Trump came from outside the failed political class and was unable to solve the problems of citizens, to present himself as an exclusive and true representative of the people, and then as a candidate better able to express the people and their concerns and better able to hear their problems.
Trump and Kais Saied presented themselves as representatives of the general will of the people without necessarily regard to the electoral or institutional process.
However, there is an important difference between them, which is the same difference between Trump’s American populism, Qais Saeed’s populism, and Arab populism in general.
Donald Trump
Donald Trump has politically and spectally expressed living social forces with a high degree of organization and political effectiveness in the American society, and during the period of Trump’s rise, these forces entered into a close political alliance with a number of American conservative forces, led by the Republican Party, and thus they reached Trump to the presidency of the United States The United States is outside the system and within it at the same time. Simultaneously, the US sovereign institutions stood at a distance from the elected populist president and did not identify with him, and did not explicitly return him in a way that leads to the collapse of the political process, and thus preserved the American democratic and political traditions, its institutions and its constitutional framework.
On the contrary, the position of Kais Saied, who is leading the populist tide in Tunisia today against the political class, civil society and the media, comes as the man appeared in the media and next to him are the leaders of the army and security services to announce the suspension of parliament and push tanks into the streets to surround the People’s Assembly, preventing elected representatives from entering it. According to Tunisian writer Ali Kniss: "After Qais gathered all the powers in his hand, he is now heading to hand over a number of files to the army under the pretext that the political and administrative elite failed to manage them. This is accompanied by a widespread state of denial of the existence of a coup in the country, and cheers for every step." It is the beginning of the militarization of the management of public affairs, and getting rid of these exceptional measures will never be easy." (3)
Here lies the danger of Arab populism represented by Qais Saeed, which is that it did not come as the embodiment of a social alliance or political projects from the forces of civil society to impose its conception of authority and legitimacy in order to solve the problems of society itself. In managing the democratic transition process and managing urgent political files in the economy, health, and others, and therefore populism in the Tunisian case here is only a bridge to the transition from democracy to bureaucratic and military dictatorship, and the removal of society with all its layers and forces from the political sphere, and even the loss of politicization and the practice of politics from the ground up and its importance in The public view, with reverence for the need to "accomplish tasks" and "policy" and other concepts.
Because Tunisia's new populist leader lacks real, organized political power, he is likely to become its captive, rather than its leader, over time.
The case of Kais Saied, then, represents a form of fragile populism. Whereas contemporary Western populists, such as “Victor Orban” in Hungary, “Jean-Marie Le Pen” in France, and “Donald Trump”In the United States, they are political representatives of forces on the ground and social segments with weight and presence among the people, and they present themselves as a more democratic alternative and able to represent the interests of the people compared to the elites, and they enter the political field through the ballot boxes and frameworks of constitutional legitimacy, Qais Saeed is coming from the shadows Exactly, without any organized community backer, and without a right-wing or populist party, only the forces that hate the Ennahda movement and are discontented with the current situation in Tunisia support it, and only its abstract rhetoric and attack on parties, political pluralism and civil society in its classical sense gives it popularity; Thus opening the door to authoritarianism and the liquidation of the political sphere in favor of an authoritarian or totalitarian rule based around his person and after him the security and military apparatus of the state.
And because Tunisia’s new populist leader lacks real organized political power, except for the necessarily wrapping up of bureaucratic and non-political state agencies around him, it is likely that he will become a prisoner of it over time rather than a leader, and thus he may pave the way for the rule of these military and security agencies in the near future.
As for the popular sectors that support him, they may soon find themselves disappointed with the departure of Qais Saeed from the scene by electing another or his death, especially when he is rooted in any political backer, and then they will have to face a much bigger problem than an incompetent elite or a paralyzed parliament. It is another elite that cannot be removed from power through the ballot boxes.
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Sources:
Tunisia: The President of the Republic Turns the Table, Al-Safir Al-Arabi newspaper, Mohamed Rami Abdel Mawla
In answer to the question: What is populism?, Azmi Bishara, the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies
The course of the coup against the revolution did not start today, and the “savior president” will not reverse it, Ali Kniss, ink
What is populism?, Jan Werner Muller, Forum on Arab and International Relations