All indicators are in the red: a historic GDP recession of around 6.8%, a record foreign debt of 92 billion dinars (around 30 billion euros) and bankrupt public companies, but not only.
Doctors, journalists, engineers and magistrates on strike. Senior executives, unemployed and non-graduates flee, often with their families, an unbearable daily life.
In recent days, the fever of social protests has regained the four corners of the country. Protesters are blocking production sites and roads for the umpteenth time and paralyzing supplies to some regions to demand development and employment plans.
In Parliament, it’s a circus!
The hour is serious, and the political leaders continue to bicker The days pass and resemble each other in Bardo, seat of the Parliament, where the deputies, supposed to propose “revolutionary” bills, make reign an unprecedented violence: clash to repetition, regionalism, homophobia and physical assault. On the other side, between Carthage and the Kasbah, it is also war. For months, President Kaïs Saïed and the head of government Hichem Mechichi have been engaged in a pitched battle, the most recent of which is related to the holding of a national dialogue to end the crisis.
While Mechichi intends to favor a dialogue with representatives of political parties and parliamentary blocs, the expert in constitutional law wants “an innovative national dialogue where there will be no room for the corrupt”, with reference to questionable links between the chief executive with Ennahdha, Qalb Tounes and Alliance Al Karama.
Saïed as a presidential man
Certainly, the ineffectiveness of successive governments since the 2011 revolution is at the root of the chaotic social, economic and financial situation, but Hichem Mechichi remains the architect of the current disorder. By his highly contested handling of the El-Kamour case, his disproportionate decisions and his inability to say no, the chief executive has sparked outbursts of anger and demands all over Tunisia.
As the specter of bankruptcy looms, citizens and politicians alike are scrambling to see Saïed at work to remedy this imbroglio. How? ‘Or’ What ? By activating article 80 of the Constitution which authorizes the President of the Republic to take exceptional measures, “in the event of imminent danger threatening the institutions of the nation and the security and independence of the country and hindering the regular functioning of public authorities ”. The objective: to restore state authority and rekindle the dead locomotives of the economy to give Tunisians hope and give priority to social justice. An impossible mission given the current stagnation.
