The Algerian Islamist parties, close to the Muslim Brotherhood, have, unsurprisingly, condemned what they call a “coup”.
These jolts of Tunisia continue to resonate in the Algeria neighbor and recent developments in the second post-revolution Jasmine Republic are no exception. President Kaïs Saïed’s initiative to apply article 80 of the Constitution, establishing himself as the sole head of the executive, freezing Parliament and dismissing its head of government, while neutralizing the parliamentary majority of Ennahdha, this July 25, has been widely commented on in Algeria, both in the media and in social networks or within a part of the political class. As expected, it was the two Algerian branches of the Muslim Brotherhood (FM) that most strongly criticized the Tunisian president. A gesture of solidarity assumed with their Tunisian co-religionists of Ennahdha, as they did during Marshal Sisi’s coup against the Muslim Brotherhood, in Egypt, summer 2013, or during the failed coup, in Turkey, against Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in 2016. Note the silence of other parties, especially so-called secular or progressive, or parties close to power.
Algerian Muslim Brotherhood cry out for “coup”
Even before his party took an official position, the president of the Movement for the Society of Peace (MSP, FM tendency), Abderrazak Makri, made a statement on his Facebook page: “Kaïs Saïed trains Tunisia and the whole region in great fitna [instability] by overthrowing the Tunisian constitution and democracy.” “The international powers and the Arab leaders who planned and supported it as well as the secular extremists in Tunisia prefer chaos to democracy, they are all at the service of the Zionist and colonial project”, adds the Islamist leader for a few hours after the announcements of Kaïs Saïed.
This diatribe was followed by the official statement from the executive office of the MSP, which denounced “a coup against the Tunisian Constitution and the will of the Tunisian people”, while calling on the Algerian authorities to “support the legal institutions in Tunisia, to condemn the coup, to consider the unilateral and unconstitutional decisions [of Saïed] as a danger for Tunisia and for its neighborhood”.
The same tone is used on the side of the other wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Algeria, the Front de la justice et du développement (FJD, or El Adala): “All the elements that make up a coup d’état are there. The Tunisian president does not have the right to freeze or dissolve parliament, to lift the immunity of deputies, or to dissolve the government. The army does not have the right to close institutions in front of legitimately elected representatives.”
The United Arab Emirates targeted
Because El Adala, as assumed by its leader Abdallah Djaballah, considers that it is the generals of the Tunisian army who are really behind the “coup” of Kaïs Saïed, a way – somewhat forced – to tackle the pattern on Tunisia. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s coup in Egypt against the late President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Instead of focusing on democratic gains, despotism won [the Tunisian president], which drew the army towards him, convincing him to abandon his neutrality and become the tool [of the army] to achieve a coup,” writes Abdallah Djaballah on social networks. And, in a statement to an Algerian media outlet, the president of El Adala does not hesitate to target support for Kaïs Saïed “from the countries which have normalized [with Israel], particularly the United Arab Emirates”. “The United Arab Emirates including one of the most active spokespersons on Twitter, the Deputy Chief of Police of Dubai [Dhahi Khalfan Tamim] tweeted July 22, three days before Saïed’s coup: “Good news, a new, very strong blow will soon strike the Muslim Brotherhood,” “says an official from an Algerian Islamist party to incriminate this very hostile emirate to the brotherhood.
The shadow of 1992 …
Coming back to Abdallah Djaballah, he blasted “jurists and hirak personalities who supported the Tunisian president”, considering that it is a “war of the secular current against Islam” in order to “protect the illegal interests of the West in [their] countries”. This targeted shot by the Islamist leader recalls the heated debates in Algeria when it comes to the equation of political Islamism and the conquest of power.
The first electoral victories of the post-2011 Tunisian Islamist party had pushed Algerians, in a historical mirror effect, to re-analyze the scenarios of a seizure of power by the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS, dissolved party) after the first pluralist legislative elections Algerians in 1992.
This mistrust of political Islamism is very clearly reflected in certain editorials in the Algerian press on Tuesday, July 27, and even among intellectuals like the writer Amin Zaoui. This last post on his Facebook page: “I am on the side of Tunisia’s modernity, equality between men and women, justice, diversity, and openness… Defending the future of threatened Tunisia passes. before the collection of prefabricated and budget-consuming institutions.”
“A saving act”
The writer, very critical of the conservatives and the Islamists, does not say anything other than the columnist of El Watan who titles “Save Tunisia first”: “The young Tunisian democracy will perhaps suffer from a constitutional crisis and the path on which the country is heading is uncertain, but the undeniable legalism of the constitutionalist Saïed and popular support for his approach, above all, disarm his opponents. of Ennahdha and their allies. “Optimist, the big daily asserts:” These Tunisians who dazzled the world by their revolution in 2011 against the authoritarian and corrupt regime of Ben Ali and subsequently resisted in the face of the Islamist project, are certainly tired by the successive blows of the counter-revolution supported by global capitalism and the international Muslim Brotherhood, but these Tunisians are capable of the best in the face of current challenges.”
In the same ideological family as El Watan, Le Soir d’Algérie also supports the Tunisian president: “On the orders of Kaïs Saïed, the Tunisian army has sealed off Parliament. It is undemocratic, some will say, writes columnist Maâmar Farah. For us, this is a saving act that protects Tunisia against the demons of destabilization. Because of a parliamentarian ill-suited to our countries, our neighbor almost collapsed, especially since the Muslim Brotherhood in power did not play the game of democracy.”
“Ghannouchi delivered Tunisia to Turkey”
More radical, the journalist and director of the daily El Fadjr, Hadda Hazem, does not mince words against the kh’wandjiya (the “brothers”), to use her terms, targeting the Muslim Brotherhood and their political branches across the Arab world and in Turkey. “The Tunisian president is no longer, after the decisions are taken, a doll in the hands of Rached Ghannouchi [historical leader of Ennahdha] to govern Tunisia as he pleases, as was the case with ex-president Moncef Marzouki She writes in her editorial.” The Tunisian president is only responding to the demands of the Tunisian people who brought out the corruption of Ben Ali through the door which returned through the window under the tunic of Ghannouchi and his men, Ghannouchi who delivered Tunisia, his security and its secrets to Turkey to dispose of it as it pleases,” continues Hadda Hazem.
Phone call from Saïed to Tebboune
For his part, the editorial writer for Liberté approaches another angle: “The inability of leaders to contain their conflicts within institutions is a sign of the weakness of national political forces. But also and above all due to the influence of external actors. Tunisia is also the ground where regional rivalries are played out. It must be said that a number of regimes in the Near and Middle East viewed with a dim view the success of the Jasmine revolution, which was economically abandoned. On the other hand, they did their best to feed the tensions between local political currents.”
On the official site, nothing filters the analysis made by the Algerian authorities of the new situation in Tunisia. However, we will know that Kaïs Saïed called his Algerian counterpart on Monday, July 26 to discuss “developments in the situation in Tunisia” and that the Algerian foreign minister, Ramtane Lamamra, visited Tunis on Tuesday to meet the Tunisian president. But, for the moment, Algiers refrains from officially commenting on the evolution of events in the neighborhood.
