Popular consultations: Controversy that increases complexities of Tunisian scene

Controversy is still raging over the electronic consultations launched by Tunisia in mid-January to receive popular proposals regarding the constitutional amendments promised by President Kais Saied in mid-December 2021.

Despite the continuous announcement of the number of participants and the developments of the consultations, there are parties who doubt its feasibility for the Tunisian scene, which raises a question about the evaluation and effectiveness of the step.

According to the consultations, a stability committee will be convened on constitutional amendments based on the consultations submitted by citizens inside and outside Tunisia during that period.

Consultations website

In early January, the Tunisian authorities launched a website for consultations, identifying six areas that are supposed to cover citizens' interests: economic issues, development and digital transition, educational and cultural issues, political and electoral issues, quality of life, and social issues. According to the website, the number of participants so far has reached about 218,000, with 161,319 males and 56,717 females. The age group between 30 and 39 years represented the most participating segment with 29.4% of the total participants, followed by the group aged between 40 and 49 years with 23%.

With regard to the areas in which most consultations are received, the political and electoral issue came at the top of the list with a rate of 17.8%, slightly higher than the economic issue, which gained 17.2%. Sustainable development ranked third in terms of Tunisians’ concerns with 16.2%, while quality of life got 16.1% of the total consultations, and educational and cultural affairs came last with 15.9% of the proposals submitted. Doubting the feasibility of the consultations despite the renewed statistics announced by the responsible authorities, some observers and partisans have reservations about the consultations for reasons including the lack of confidence in communicating with each other to discuss sensitive issues such as constitutional amendments.

At the same time, some go further, as they see that the whole matter lacks transparency. Former Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, who is one of the most vocal opponents of Saied’s steps and is affiliated with the Brotherhood’s Ennahda movement, called on Tunisians not to participate in the consultations, describing the step as “a new fraud operation that the gullible will fall victim to,” adding that they do not know that their data will be used in the re-election of the leader, namely Saied. He claimed that the purpose of the consultations is to record the data of the participants in order to identify and track opponents of the president.

In contrast to Marzouki, who was charged with an international summons for his role in distorting the Tunisian state, according to the authorities, the Secretary-General of the People’s Movement party, Zuhair Maghzaoui, said in press statements that these consultations cannot be a substitute for the national dialogue, calling for it to be supported by a dialogue with the parties supporting the July 25 track. For her part, Abeer Moussa, head of the Free Destourian Party, expressed her fear for the civil state in an interview with Shems radio, criticizing the road map drawn up by President Saied and questioning the ability of the upcoming referendum to express the popular will.

On the other hand, voices supporting the president stuck to the experiment of consultations, justifying it not being reinforced with a national dialogue due to the failure of all the previous national dialogues that Tunisia witnessed during the last decade. This position stems from the lack of trust that the Tunisian president has for political parties, as he considers them responsible for the dire economic, political and social situation in the country, and not the Ennahda movement alone. That is why he refrains from sitting with them, alluding in his speeches to the corruption that controls them.

In his latest comment on the consultations, Saied said in a meeting with Minister of Communication Technology Nizar ben Neji on Tuesday, February 22, that there are parties working to cause a malfunction in the official website of the consultations. The president described the situation in an official statement issued by the presidency, saying, “They want to silence mouths and abort this experiment, the first of its kind in Tunisia.”

Beyond the contradictions

These contradictory positions reflect the difficult situation the country is going through, which was highlighted by Mohamed Fawzy, a researcher in regional security affairs at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Egypt, in an assessment of a position titled “Dimensions and Obstacles of the Presidential Road Map in Tunisia.” Fawzi said that the path of the democratic transition in Tunisia is currently going through one of its most dangerous stages, adding that the success of this stage depends on some determinants that come at the heart of the political desire to build consensual and participatory paths to bypass this stage.

Fawzy addressed the economic situation as one of the obstacles to the election and referendum as stipulated in the road map, saying that the success of the line that Tunisia is walking depends on the extent to which it is able to find viable economic solutions to the crises facing the country, a goal that cannot be achieved without coordination with the socio-economic union entities, especially the Labor Union.

He noted that President Saied announced at the end of January during a cabinet meeting that 82% of citizens prefer the presidential system and 92% support the withdrawal of confidence from parliamentarians, adding that “89% of citizens do not have confidence in the judiciary, and 81% support that the state be responsible for regulating religious affairs.”

“These numbers are not fake, and people from offices or parties did not put them up,” the president said.